How to Survive (Until) Your Wedding
by MissCar
Summary: Jim and Spock just wanted a simple wedding on the fourth anniversary of getting together. Unfortunately, Starfleet decides to turn their nuptials into the diplomatic event of the holiday season and chose Starbase Yorktown as the venue. Will Jim and Spock make it to the altar? Or a Star Trek Beyond AU with an engaged Jim and Spock For KS Advent 2016
1. Why Did I Agree to This?

Title: How to Survive (Until) Your Wedding

Summary: Jim and Spock really just wanted a simple wedding on the fourth anniversary of getting together, a.k.a. Christmas 2264. Instead, their overworked and under stimulated crew takes over their bachelor party/ wedding shower and Starfleet decides to turn their nuptials into the diplomatic event of the 2264 holiday season. The powers that be also chose Starbase Yorktown as the venue for the wedding. Then it all goes to hell and Jim starts to believe Christmas is cursed again. Will Jim and Spock make it to the altar?

Star Trek Beyond AU with an engage Jim and Spock

Beta: GraysonSteele

Series: STR/KTL AU

Continuity: **This is set post STID** with an altered timeline that will **incorporate elements from Star Trek Beyond** (At least in my story, we have a really good reason why Carol Marcus is no longer on Enterprise.) The biggest differences are in this universe Winona Kirk died in December 2259 and Spock Prime lived past January 2, 2253.

Part five of the series: What to Get the Captain and First Officer Who Have Everything but Each Other

Follow-up to: _How to Surprise Your Boyfriend at Christmas_ and _Love, Commitment, and Valentine's Day in the 23rd century_. **This can be read as a standalone story.**

For KS Advent 2016 and a follow-up to my entries for 2013 and 2014.

Rating: **Hard T/PG-13** mostly for bad words, dirty jokes, violence, and Vulcans in peril.

Length: 34,000 words (Really, I didn't mean for it to get this big.)

Warnings: Action, **violence,** dirty jokes, anatomically correct penis cookies, sexual situations, emotionally unstable captains, and **near-death experiences**.

Relationships: Established **Jim/Spock,** established Bones/Carol, established Sulu/Ben, best friends for life Spock and Nyota, and Nyota/Kristen Klucking-Marcus (OFC). Along with a certain navigator still having a ridiculous unrequited crush on his Captain.

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters created by Gene Roddenberry and reinterpreted by J.J. Abrams and Justin Lin. (We should probably throw Simon Pegg in there too, because he believes in pansexual Kirk.) This story is for entertainment purposes only. It's my turn to play and I feel like returning to this particular toy box.

I was originally planning for the fifth and final story in this series to come out in December of 2015, but then my mom ended up in the hospital for most of September and I had two family members die between Thanksgiving and December due to long-term illness. On the bright side, Star Trek Beyond really helped shape the story.

Note: It is my theory that by 2264 bridal shower will be a gender-neutral term. Language has a tendency to change over time.

 **Chapter 1: Why Did I Agree to a Happy Holidays Bridal Shower?**

* * *

Jim Kirk loved his crew. They were the best in Starfleet in his personal opinion. Of course after 1681 days in space, there were moments when his fearless crew made him really want to hide under his bed. His Christmas themed bridal shower was one of those moments.

He blamed the presence of the giant penis cake and Mrs. Clause blow up doll on the fact that they've mostly been doing star mapping for the last three months (with the occasional away mission that goes really really badly thrown in for flavor). Everybody's going a little stir crazy because if you've done one star mapping assignment you've done them all. At a certain point, trying to shock your boss with an anatomically correct papier-mâché snow Vulcan is the only thing that keeps you grounded. And he was shocked and a little disturbed.

He personally needed to thank Carol's replacement on the science team, Lisa, for insisting that Spock have his private, Science Department bachelor party at the same time. By being unable to attend, Spock couldn't freak out about the regulations being violated. The pin the penis on anatomically incorrect Vulcan blowup doll, dressed only in a Santa hat, probably would have resulted in write-ups. The fact that they had gingerbread penises would have resulted in the same thing, but at least Jim wasn't allergic to those.

The words 'Christmas' and 'bridal shower' should not be combined together under any circumstances. It was giving him an all new set of Christmas issues. This was highlighted by some of the presents that he received from his fearless crew. As he opened the present from his security team consisting of handcuffs, blindfolds and some sort of whip along with the damn Merry Christmas version of the Pleasure Seeker 9000, he questioned the sanity of everyone in said department.

"Why did I let you talk me into a bridal shower?" Jim asked, holding up the offensive toy. The new version was Christmas tree shaped, sort of. Jim was trying to decide if this version was worse than the candy cane shaped one from four years ago. He definitely felt it was weirder.

"Because, you wanted to do something for the crew before you became immersed in the diplomatic event that is your wedding and bridal showers can be co-ed. In addition, it made sense to combine it with our annual winter holiday spectacular, since we will all be on shore leave when we'd normally have it on December 24. None of us thought that all of the department heads would purchase your gifts from the Red Light District." Nyota sighed as she wrote down exactly who had given what.

"I'm certain I mentioned not to get presents from there when I sent out the memo about appropriate wedding and bridal gifts per Starfleet regulations. Now I remember why we stopped doing Secret Santa."

"You know, the crew is awful about following rules not directly related to their jobs. I just wanted a nice peaceful party before tomorrow's diplomatic mission and our shore leave on Yorktown. Instead, we get pine tree shaped Christmas colored Jell-O shots and the guess how many times Spock has ripped my shirt game." Jim sighed.

He should have known that Starfleet would decide that his wedding should take place at Starbase Yorktown to symbolize unity within the Federation. After all, what says unity better than a crazy human marrying a person of human and Vulcan ancestry, on a Starbase that is supposed to be the living embodiment of Starfleet unity?

"I came up with the bridal shower party idea," Sulu reluctantly acknowledged. "Although maybe I shouldn't have handed over the adult bridal shower package that my sister sent to the planning committee, at least not without checking it over first. The fake snow penis was a little much."

Since Sulu's sister was a wedding planner on Earth and the helmsman had helped out during the summers when he was at the Academy, Hikaru was Jim's go to person for wedding help. He was also Jim's only married friend who'd had an actual wedding.

Bones did go through a wedding, but it was the shotgun version that mostly consisted of showing up at the courthouse. Thanks to the chocolate fiasco last Christmas during which Bones found out his girlfriend was pregnant due to alien plants negating contraceptives, Jim was not allowed to ask any wedding planning questions when he called.

Despite the bridal shower fiasco, Sulu had actually been really helpful and his daughter was going to be an adorable little flower girl. Jim needed all the help he could get. Instead of a small ceremony Christmas day with their friends onboard the ship, they were going to have a full-blown spectacle at Yorktown complete with Federation dignitaries that Jim felt certain his future father-in-law put on the list. He probably had done it just to get back at Jim for not having a Vulcan ceremony when it was Spock who firmly decided on the human ceremony.

They were also going to have to put up with Starfleet officials that Jim kind of sort of wanted to strangle on a daily basis. Yet, they were going along with it because their Starfleet sanctioned wedding would probably be less chaotic than whatever Spock's father would prefer for them to do. Jim envisioned baking in the desert on the New Vulcan colony in full Vulcan regalia surrounded by people he didn't know nor wanted to. Spock didn't want to put up with that and neither did Jim.

"Don't touch the handcuffs until I can scan them." Nyota pulled out the tricorder that Bones left her pre-programmed for all of Jim's allergies. Bones didn't want to leave Jim behind without something to protect him from his allergies of doom.

Jim missed his best friend. Two months before baby Davida was born, Carol had been offered a promotion to the position of weapons specialist at Starbase Yorktown and she couldn't pass it up (especially because it allowed her more time to retrain in her preferred specialty). And because of the promise Bones made to Carol last Valentine's Day, he relocated with her and the baby for the duration. So now, Jim had to survive with two calls a week during which Bones complained at length about living in a city made of glass tubes, hanging in the middle of space, that could collapse any moment. It really must be love if Bones was willing to live and raise his baby daughter on that starbase of all places.

One of the main reasons why Jim is going along with Starfleet hijacking his wedding was that Bones would get to be there if they held it at Starbase Yorktown. It was an added bonus that the location would also allow for baby Sulu to be his flower girl. She's so cute.

"I think I can touch the handcuffs, especially Christmas themed handcuffs that are dressed up like Santa Claus. I did so just last week." Jim said with a smirk.

"What about last Valentine's Day?" Nyota was referring to him swelling like a balloon last Valentine's Day due to what they assumed was an allergic reaction to handcuffs.

"That only happened because there was some of the residual Pop Your Cherry massage oil on the handcuffs." Jim said grabbing the toy as soon as the tricorder gave the all clear.

"Speaking of the massage oil, that has put you in to Sickbay more than once, you have three bottles of this stuff in this gift bag." Sulu said from beside him, holding up the gift bag in question. "I thought Dr. McCoy banned that stuff after the Valentine's Day incident."

"He did, but the new CMO can reverse it. Actually, I think she must have because that gift back came from the medical department and Dr. Chapel pretty much hates me." Jim explained.

Carol was the one who convinced her doctor friend to take over the position once Bones left Jim behind for his new kid. It's not a very easy relationship mostly because Jim can't even remember what he did to piss her off. He only hooked up with her once when he was at the Academy and she didn't even give him her real name. But apparently that was enough to warrant getting deadly presents for his wedding. Thankfully, Christine already put in a transfer request and they would be picking up their new CMO right after the wedding. (Thank God, because this wasn't working at all.)

"I'm so glad we decided to open presents in private so the whole ship didn't find out about my CMO's desire to kill me." Jim sighed.

"That may be why." Nyota mumbled under breath and in perfect Vulcan forgetting that he understood Vulcan perfectly.

"Just put that in the box of things that will probably kill me and you can split it up among yourselves to use on shore leave. Preferably when I'm already locked in my suite for the honeymoon with Spock." Jim was a little disturbed by the fact that the box of things that could kill him was already halfway full. Maybe he should've allowed Nyota to send out a list of everything he is allergic to, but after what happened with Secret Santa 2261, he was a little afraid of everyone having that information.

"The married man can have the massage oil and phallic Christmas tree sex toy. I'll take the box of Vulcan almond cookie penises." Nyota volunteered. Unlike the gingerbread penises at the party, Jim couldn't touch those without his tongue swelling.

"I'll only be able to use it if I find a babysitter for at least one night. How anatomically correct are the Vulcan cookie penises? I think that brings a whole new meaning to gingerbread man." Nyota snickered at his comment. Jim did too.

"Accurate enough that I hope they didn't serve any of those things at the Science Department bachelor party." Spock would freak out in a very Vulcan way. "The only difference is the almond cookie version would make my tongue swell due to containing almonds and soy. I don't have that problem with the real thing." Jim answered cheekily.

"You know we seriously need a shore leave when we start having conversations like this." Nyota said as she started going through the next box, this time from Engineering. Scotty must've picked it out since the whole package was high proof alien alcohol that may or may not be legal. "I'll be happy to babysit at least one night after the wedding."

"Won't you be preoccupied with Kristen by that point? I thought you were staying with her at her apartment instead of in short-term Starfleet housing." Jim asked with a smirk.

The best assistant Jim ever had was currently on Yorktown finishing up her last year at Starfleet Academy remotely as she planned the Starfleet wedding of the century and helped out with her baby cousin. Kristen had been scheduled to graduate this semester, but she may or may not have reprogrammed the Kobayashi Maru so that everybody had a chance of winning. She suddenly found herself being forced to take all the Command Ethics classes that usually aren't required until you become a Starfleet Captain. Therefore Kristen would not be available until Enterprise was back on Earth, taking a year off to 'recover' from her five-year mission. Jim was really sad about that.

"We are just friends and since we're already babysitting her baby cousin, we can add one more." Even Sulu snickered at that qualifier, although he probably didn't know the entire sordid history of Kristen and Nyota (Oh god, the dirty emails that he had destroyed over the last few years). Then again, the Enterprise rumor mill was very accurate when it wanted to be, so he might know about their ongoing dance which began with a mistletoe induced kiss four years ago and ended with Spock finding a half-naked Kristen in Nyota's room during one of their seemingly weekly crises the day before Kristen left for Yorktown.

"Only by the Vulcan definition of the word." Because Jim knew full well that there was nothing platonic about that relationship. "I'm completely expecting you and her to make out during the rehearsal dinner. Just keep it PG because Sulu's daughter will be there. You don't want to scar the baby. Think of the children." That response resulted in Nyota standing up and throwing the box from the Linguistics Department at him. They were his and his bathrobes, because of course she got him the tamest thing possible from the Red Light District. Oh there's chocolate body paint in there. He spoke too soon.

"You can do the rest of your presents yourself if you're going to act like that." Nyota said opening the door only to see a half-naked Chekov walking past their door.

"Never mind. I'm just going to wait here until I'm sure that he's made it back to his room without whoever kicked him out causing a scene. This is the second time this month." Nyota said taking her seat once more.

"If I have to deal with another transfer request in the morning, I'm going to be pissed." Jim groaned. "It's already happened three times." It seemed like the moment Jim confined himself to a life of monogamy his navigator decided to screw his way through most of the crew. This resulted in the walk of shame at shift change, usually missing at least one article of clothing. It's another one of those things that kept happening.

"I'll talk to him. I don't think he is handling the wedding well." Sulu sighed.

"He only dated Lieutenant Campbell for like a week." Jim said, thinking of an ex-girlfriend from two years ago who was also getting married on Yorktown during the shore leave. Thankfully, she was going to get to have a nice hotel wedding where Jim would be getting married at the Plaza. It's moments like this that Jim reminds himself that he's going through this torture so that the entire galaxy knows that Spock is his for all of eternity.

"Not that wedding." Nyota said before sharing a look with Sulu. "Is Kristin still your best woman or did Leonard successfully talk you into using him?" Nyota asked.

That was obviously a subject change, but he didn't say anything because this would give him another chance to mess with Nyota about the Kristen thing. Really they should just admit that their dating and get it over with. Even Carol was okay with it now that Kristen had turned 21. A nine year difference isn't that bad. Jim's brother just got married to a woman 17 years his junior who he met (aka fucking) before Arlene divorced his ass. (Jim was sad that his former and still favorite sister-in-law and nephew won't be able to make it to the wedding but they're supposed to be able to watch a stream of it.) His new sister-in-law, who was still technically a teenager for two more months and Sam are definitely not on the guest list.

"Leonard didn't try that hard to convince me to switch. It's best that we stay with Kristen for the sake of symmetry and the fact that baby Bones likes to start screaming. Also, for the sake of my wedding, it is best if they can both get out of there as fast as possible. Besides, I think it's wedding tradition for the best people to end up being the next wedding."

"I'm so glad that Ben and I eloped, even though my sister didn't talk to me for three months afterwards." Jim doesn't think it counts as eloping if you plan the entire thing for 60 guests in secret for six months to keep your sister from taking over your wedding.

Evidently, that's where they went wrong. If they had just waited until the day before the wedding to fill out the paperwork, Starfleet would have never got involved. They picked the color scheme out. Granted it was a nice shade of blue that matches his eyes perfectly, but still they chose the color scheme without input from him or Spock.

"It hasn't been that bad." The two of them looked at him like he was crazy probably because they'd been dealing with his rants about the wedding for the last six months. His PADD was filled with wedding files. It took them two weeks to come up with a menu that would not send Jim to the hospital nor offend the 100 + diplomats that they were being forced to invite. Don't even mention the two weeks choosing china patterns for the reception that is more diplomatic reception than wedding reception.

"Okay, my wedding has turned into the world's worst diplomatic dinner ever because we have two more ambassadors showing up. Spock hates them because they've said mean things about his mom. We can't not have them there because diplomatic relations with both of their planets are currently problematic and Starfleet wants to use our happy occasion to generate some goodwill."

By problematic, Jim meant they are 30 seconds from bombing each other and apparently somebody in the diplomatic corps thought a wedding reception was a great place to work out your issues. Jim was pretty sure this was the reason why his crew was betting on when security will have to kick someone out for fighting. Jim was going with four minutes into the reception.

"I'm halfway tempted to eat one of the almond Vulcan penis cookies just so we can call the whole thing off and have the wedding we really want, but Spock would kill me if the cookies didn't." His fiancée was really protective.

"Also if Enterprise does not participate in the negotiations between the Teenaxi Delegation and the Fibonan Republic a second time, Admiral Chan probably will kill you herself." Nyota reminded him.

Thanks to the great Christmas allergic reaction of 2262, the Hamilton ended up going in Enterprise's stead without the gift from Fibonan Republic. This resulted in negotiations falling apart within the first five minutes and the captain of the Hamilton ending up covered in bite marks. Never show up empty-handed to a negotiation.

After what happening again two years later, Jim was determined for things to be better this time. It took a team of diplomats nearly 2 years to get them this second chance. Hopefully, the peace offering/diplomatic gift from the Fibonan Republic will keep things from going for going to hell, again.

"Good point. The Federation cannot afford for negotiations to fail spectacularly a second time." Maybe he could get the two sides to negotiate a peace treaty this time around and Commodore Paris would be willing to accept his application for the Vice Admiral position at Yorktown.

Most days Jim liked his job. Granted some days Jim despised his job, but without a doubt he loved working with his boyfriend which was the only reason why he hadn't looked into graduate engineering programs on Earth. There's only so much star mapping one can take before everything blended together. First contacts can go bad only so many times before you wonder why are you still doing this? They were never going to run out of things to find. So why do they keep doing this? Jim's answer was Spock.

Spock's biological clock was ticking (made worse by the fact his other self had passed away last summer) and despite changes in Starfleet regulations that on paper make it easier to raise a family in space, it wouldn't be practical. Carol got kicked upstairs for a reason. If they both had positions at Starbase Yorktown, they could employ the use of a gestational carrier droid and Vulcan donor egg to do their part in rebuilding the Vulcan population efforts.

"This is why I should go with you." Nyota suggested breaking him out of his thoughts. "Things fell apart last time because the universal translator screwed up." She had a point and Jim really did want to take Nyota and Sulu on more missions. If he and Spock did get reassigned, then Jim knew that he wanted Sulu and Nyota to take over Enterprise. They would make a good team. Also, Nyota hadn't been kicked out of the room of a significant other due to being an idiot yet. That shows that she is more mature than the alternative.

"I'm really not supposed to bring someone else with me." But I really want to.

"Your future husband will kill us all if you're covered in claw marks before the wedding. Think of the wedding pictures." Nyota remarked.

"Especially if he wasn't the one who gave them to you." Sulu snickered under breath.

"You do remember that I'm your Captain?" He asked his crewmates annoyed.

"Some days I think we've all been together a little too long." Jim agreed with Sulu's words.

"Valid point. Fine, Nyota you can come." Jim acquiesced because again Spock would be really mad if he died on a simple mission less than five days before the wedding.

Their conversation was ended by Spock returning to the quarters wearing a party hat with a piece of mistletoe up top, carrying a plate of chocolate phallic shaped cookies. Spock probably brought back the cookies for Jim because he didn't want to eat any at the party, but wanted to be polite as well.

"What happened at the Science Department bachelor party?" Jim asked his husband once they were alone. He could still hear Nyota giggling in the hallway because the door was taking a little too long to close.

"We watched a film entitled A Nude Christmas Carol which had very little plot and consisted of 87% sex scenes involving a woman named Carol who was only wearing mistletoe through 92% of the film." Spock said as he removed the mistletoe hat before Jim could make good use of it. Not that Jim needed an excuse to kiss his fiancée.

"It was so unfair that you got to watch Christmas porn and I had to deal with weird presents that could potentially cause anaphylaxis." Jim said, pointing to the box that Sulu forgot to take because he left so quickly. He'd have Spock drop it off in the morning.

"I thought Nyota sent out a list of appropriate presents? Is that a pine tree shaped vibrator?"

"Yes, don't worry I am giving that thing away. It disturbs me. Moments like these make me less sad about applying for the job at Yorktown." Jim said, leaning over to kiss his fiancée. "You taste good."

"While watching the film we drank something called a Brandy Alexander," Spock explained as he walked into the bedroom part of their quarters. Jim followed behind after he grabbed a bag filled with the gifts that he might actually use tonight, despite the fact he probably should sleep.

"And they sent you back to me tipsy, which explains why you were still wearing the hat." Jim said as he moved most of the presents that would kill him to the other side of their living room. "Which is also kind of unfair because Sulu wouldn't let me have more than one Merry Christmas Jell-O shot due to the mission tomorrow." So unfair.

"Alcohol has a limited effect on me." Spock said as he took off his shirt. Jim loves his shirtless Spock in the evening.

"However, the dark Crème de cacao in the drink makes you really tipsy and you had both which will be fun for me." Jim said as he pulled out his favorite present from the evening. "Want to use our new happy holidays handcuffs?" He held up the red and white felt covered item for Spock to inspect.

"Yes." Spock answered seconds before Jim found himself in bed. The quartermaster was going to be so pissed about the torn shirt. Oh well, it was the night of his wedding shower. A torn shirt was bound to happen.

* * *

Nyota honestly thought her presence would help the Federation's second attempt at brokering a peace treaty between the Teenaxians and the Fibonan Republic. Unfortunately, the situation still deteriorated in to chaos, necessitating an emergency extraction. The mission's failure was partially her fault for not researching the history of the peace offering herself and asking for more details on its origin.

She was lucky to only end up with a shredded uniform. Yet, Dr. Chapel paid more attention to her than to Jim, who was starting to bruise. Those were going to make for some interesting wedding pictures if not properly healed.

Really, Dr. Chapel needed to get over the fact that Jim slept with her and didn't call the next day or whatever actually happened. This was unprofessional. Maybe it's best that she was leaving.

Spock promptly started fussing over Jim until Jim placated him with a Vulcan kiss and reassured him he just needed a new shirt and a drink to recover from what happened. Spock then asked her to check up on Jim while he cataloged the world's most inappropriate peace offering. You do not give a stolen weapon as a symbol of peace. That's just dumb.

After she put on a fresh uniform, she found Jim sulking with a container of blue alcohol that she was sure was part of Scotty's bridal shower present. The officer's bar/rec room was mostly recovered from the bridal shower the day before, only the papier-mâché 'fertility' snow Vulcan sat perched on the counter next to Jim.

"Put the illegal stuff down. I would be remiss in my best woman duties if I allowed you to show up to the wedding blind due to drinking whatever that is. I saved a bottle of wine from the party yesterday." She said holding up one of the good bottles that she stashed in the fridge. She had been saving it for a toast after the ceremony, but she could get another bottle at Yorktown. Today's diplomatic disaster required alcohol.

"And yet none of the Scotch?" Jim asked just as she started looking for the wine glasses. There were a few left.

"I think they turned to the Scotch once they ran out of Merry Christmas Jell-O shots. I can't believe they made Christmas tree shaped Jell-O shots. We've really had too much time on our hands recently." She said pouring him a generous portion of the sparkling wine.

"Definitely. Do you ever wonder why we keep doing this?" Jim finally asked after finishing half of his class.

"Usually every time we run into a language that has six or more words for the term penis." Nyota joked.

"Reproduction is really important in most cultures." Jim replied with a snicker. "Which we keep finding out every time we do another first contact, but it just keeps feeling like the same thing. I think this is the 15th shirt I've lost this year alone."

"Not counting those ripped by Spock during sex of course. Did the fiancée take out another one last night?" She joked.

"Yes. Our quartermaster is starting to assume that they were all actually ripped by Spock. I can't even look her in the face anymore." It didn't help that the quartermaster was old enough to be Jim's grandmother. Thanks to evil Romulans and crazy admirals the Starfleet retirement age went up 10 years to help with the personnel's shortage.

"Today was not a good mission, but they're not always like this," she said trying to reassure him.

"Sometimes they are. Okay most of the time they are and I'm left wondering why do we keep doing this?" Jim asked.

"For the sake of adventure?" She replied dryly.

"In my case, it's usually Spock, but is that enough? What am I doing with my life? I'm going to be 32 next month and my dad didn't even make it this long."

Apparently, the Jim Kirk birthday blues were starting a few weeks early this year. They usually made it to New Year's before this happens. It helps that Jim and Spock now celebrate their birthday on January 6 together. Maybe the fact that Jim was getting married without any of his parents or parental figures there was triggering the birthday blues. He didn't even have other Spock to talk to this year because the elder passed away on the same day Davida was born last summer. At least she hoped that was the reason for his melancholy.

"I hope this is just early birthday blues. You're not getting cold feet about the wedding, right?" Nyota asked slightly concerned. "I do understand if you are having wedding issues. I mean, considering that almost 5 years ago, your mom was murdered by her third husband." Those words made Jim finish his drink.

"No. I definitely want to spend the rest of my life with Spock. Trust me without him, I think I would've put in my application for something else years earlier." Jim said as he poured himself another glass of the sparkling wine. "I just don't know if I want to spend the rest of my youth on this ship."

"But now that the five year mission is almost over, you've put in your application for someplace else?" She asked.

"Rear Admiral at Yorktown along with the Starfleet liaison position on the New Vulcan colony." She wasn't even surprised. Not about the Vulcan colony anyway. Spock always felt guilty whenever he received an update from his counterpart or his father about the rebuilding efforts, as far back as when they were dating. With other Spock gone, she knew Spock was even more conflicted about staying on Enterprise.

"Because you miss Leonard and Spock's biological clock is ticking?" Jim nodded his head in agreement at her words.

"I'm pretty sure part of Spock thinks he needs to run off to New Vulcan to create baby Vulcans for the sake of his species, but he's okay with using a donor egg from a female Vulcan to produce our offspring." And this is why she knows that Jim and Spock worked better than she and Spock ever did because they wouldn't think to come up with a compromise like that. The first time they broke up was because Spock wanted to run off to the colony before there was a colony.

"I feel like there's something else going on here. Are you afraid of making your mother's mistakes?" Nyota asked concerned.

"Maybe, I was practically raised by a bastard stepdad and my grandparents because my mom was off in space so much. I don't want that to happen. But I'm not ready for an Earth job either, which is why I'm looking for something in between."

"And the assignment in Yorktown would allow for that work life balance you need." Nyota stated.

"The position on the Vulcan colony would allow Spock to work more directly. Although, I'm not sure I can be on the same planet as my father-in-law for long periods of time and I think Spock feels similarly." While Spock's relationship with his father was currently better than it was at any point when they were dating, it was still complicated. Also, she's not sure that even near genocide has tempered the attitude of some Vulcans who would openly treat Spock like shit because of his human heritage.

"At least he knows your name. I dated his son for four years and I'm not entirely certain he knows that I exist." She said pouring them both more wine.

"To surviving the wedding with minimal psychological damage." Nyota raised her glass.

"To surviving." Jim said as they clinked their glasses. Hopefully everything will be better tomorrow when they arrive at Yorktown.

* * *

Starbase Yorktown was beautiful. A marvel of modern technology and the shining example of the unity of the Federation. Hundreds of Federation species living together in harmony and peace. Nyota was looking forward to all the interesting conversations she was going to have in the various cafés and shops on the base when she wasn't fully immersed in wedding chaos. She was really looking forward to testing out her language skills with individuals that won't shoot her on sight.

Although, her favorite part of being at Starbase Yorktown was the fact that Kristen was waiting for her as she disembarked from Enterprise, with baby Davida in her arms, who was wearing the 'My cousin is a genius' onesie that Nyota sent. She hadn't seen Kristen since she left with Carol to finish up her Starfleet Academy time at Yorktown, but they talked to each other constantly. And only half of those conversations did she have to use her privileges as Chief Communications Officer to delete off the Starfleet server due to obscenity.

The way Kristen ran up and kissed her made her wonder if they were going to act out half of those messages right there in front of everyone in the greeting area. Despite the presence of the four-month-old in her arms.

"Just friends, really? Yeah right." She heard Jim snicker from the side.

"Only by the Vulcan definition of the word." Kristin said reluctantly pulling away. "Here, cuddle with your goddaughter before your meeting with Paris."

"You're just the cutest little goddaughter ever." Jim said melting the moment that the baby was in his arms. Even Spock's expression softened and sported a ghost of a smile as he allowed the little girl to grab his finger. Spock hated hand contact, but apparently babies were different. The Vulcan biological clock was definitely ticking. "Where is your daddy, my little princess?"

"Working. But he'll be there for tomorrow's rehearsal brunch/walk-through with protocol." Nyota was pretty sure she saw Spock almost frown. That's not good.

"It's never good when protocol is involved. What about tonight? I would love to have a drink with my BFF before the wedding takes over my life." Jim suggested.

"Leonard said he would try to meet you after your meeting with Paris if he can get out of work early but, you know doctors never get out early. Also, Christine is coming over for dinner before she leaves on her new ship tomorrow and…"

"We don't want any bloodshed to happen until after the ceremony." Jim finished for her.

"Exactly."

"Is it wrong to hope for an emergency mission to keep the diplomatic wedding from happening so we can have the wedding we actually want?" Jim asked the group.

"Be careful what you wish for you might just get it." Kristen warned. "I thought you two could use a free night before the wedding chaos begins. The only thing you two have to do after Jim's meeting with Paris and Spock's meeting with his father is show up at the tailor's to get fitted for your suits. They're doing it the old-fashioned way, which means they barely have time to get them done before the wedding."

"I have a meeting with my father? He is already on Yorktown?" Spock asked one eyebrow raised.

"Yes. He and your stepmom, Alexis, want to meet with you in 15 minutes at his apartment inside the Vulcan Embassy. I sent the coordinates to your PADD like five minutes ago. Just hop in one of the tubes and it should take you right there." Kristen explained.

"I am so happy that I'm missing that because of my meeting with Paris, not gonna lie." Jim explained as he kept cuddling his goddaughter. He was definitely a baby person.

"She wants to talk details about the wedding, with protocol present." Kristen explained. "By the way, the guest list is now up to 320 and I think you only know 20 of those people personally."

"Okay, now I'm not happy at all. I mean, if they've completely taken over our wedding, why do they need to go through the appearances of trying to get our input on anything? Also, shouldn't Spock be there for this too?"

"One, because they can and two, probably, but the ambassador cannot be left waiting." Kristen commented.

"Of course not." Jim look annoyed.

"Did my father explain why he wanted to see me?" Spock asked.

"Probably wedding stuff." Kristen replied almost nervously. Nyota was definitely going ask about that later.

"Tomorrow's rehearsal brunch is going to be so much fun. I assume were having it four days early, so that the dermal regeneration can be done before the wedding pictures." Jim said before handing the baby back to Kristin.

"I arranged for security staff, so it should be fine. Actually, that is the reason why protocol wanted to run through four days early." Kristen joked before forcing Jim and Spock on their way. Even though she hasn't been Jim's assistant for over three years, she was definitely able to slip back into the role very quickly.

"You're not going with Jim? I thought you were working in Paris's office this semester?"

"You and I have wedding things to do, including the dress fitting this afternoon, which would be probably more fun if I could drop little bit at daycare. But it's okay because you are going to be here for two weeks and I have baby free plans." Kristen kissed her again.

"And this wedding will only take up about half of that." She said, leaning over to kiss Kristen again.

"I just need to help get the diplomatic wedding of the year off the ground and then I will be all yours. Okay, I need to find out if the tailor can do a maternity dress for the stepmother of the groom with only four days' notice." Kristen lamented.

"Wait, seriously?" Spock was going to be upset. (She could see this increasing Spock's desire to have a baby of his own.) Lovely. She is so glad that's not her problem.

"She looks eight months pregnant and I'm pretty sure Spock doesn't know because he would've said something." Kristen explained.

"He definitely does not know. This wedding is going to be a disaster." Nyota would have no idea how prophetic those words were until 48 hours later.

To be continued


	2. Be Careful What You Wish For

This chapter and the next will track heavily with Star Trek Beyond, but there are some differences. If you are familiar with my stories, such as _The Road to Delta Vega Is Paved with Good Intentions_ or _Dear James_ , you know, I tend to keep the action bits, but change things to fit my continuity. If something happened that is the same, I won't rehash it here, but instead I will be reflecting on how my characters feel about it. I'm focusing more on the emotions than the action because emotions are where I feel my strength lies as a writer.

Also, there may be some allusions to a few TOS episodes.

Finally, inspired by Mark Twain, some of our delegations will be represented by character symbols instead of naming a specific planet that they belong to.

* * *

 **Chapter 2: Be Careful What You Wish For**

Jim doesn't think it actually counts as a meeting with Commodore Paris if he only speaks with her for about two minutes. Most of his time is spent with Jane Barnett, the diva of protocol. That woman was scary as hell with her flowcharts and seating charts and ridiculously long list of who sat next to whom and what not to say. He's a little scared for her two daughters, who are apparently members of his fan club. Having a mom so organize had to be hard to handle. He signed their Captain Kirk Starfleet Barbies for them (because somebody decided his likeness would be a perfect addition to the Starfleet Barbie doll collection).

This whole thing reminded him of that time they made Enterprise play ferry to the Federation General Assembly on Babel a.k.a. the first time Spock met his step mom and someone tried to murder his father-in-law. In addition to familial infighting, Jim had to play host to 50 different dignitaries, who all kind of wanted to strangle each other. Whoever said there's no such thing as disagreement in the modern Federation was full of shit. It was just that disagreements were less likely to end in actual war. It's mostly name-calling and trade embargoes.

Spock adored analytical, detail oriented people, so he would've adored Jane before she even told the story about how she first met Jim nearly 31 years ago at the first Kelvin Memorial celebration. (She ended up changing his diaper because Winona needed a moment.) Jim, however, spent the entire time wondering why he allowed Starfleet to take over his wedding in the first place (he also blushed a lot after that story). This whole meeting may have been tolerable if Spock was there, but his fiancée was probably being tortured by his father in a similar manner. He didn't even reply to any of Jim's snarky text messages.

Jim was almost sure his future father-in-law was trying to talk Spock out of marrying such an illogical human. Which was so hypocritical it wasn't even funny since Sarek is currently married to a human. Okay she's a lawyer, but still a human lawyer. And let's not forget that Spock's own mother had been human.

The couple had met about four years ago when Alexis volunteered to help Vulcans survived their planet's destruction. You'd be amazed at how much paperwork is required after you lose everything.

Thankfully, just as his eyes started to glaze over during a discussion about the tensions between the $ and %, he was rescued by his favorite doctor. Yay for Bones getting out early. Also, he definitely needed a drink after that.

"Thank you for saving me." Jim would've hugged Bones, if he thought the other guy would be okay with such displays of affection, but Bones only hugged his daughters and maybe Carol.

"Really, I was saving myself work. You were 30 seconds from injuring yourself to get out of there because you were that bored." Bones joked as they made their way toward a strip of restaurants and other establishments in the Yorktown complex.

"I've missed you too." Jim replied smiling. Then Jim frowned as he realized they were going into a coffee shop instead of a bar. He should've known that would be the case because Leonard hadn't had a drop of alcohol since his second daughter was born. In an effort to make sure baby Davida has a better childhood than Jo Jo, Bones quit drinking cold turkey. Jim personally believes that Davida is going to have a significantly better childhood because Carol is nowhere near as big of a bitch as Bones' first wife.

"Have you at least stopped staring at your engagement ring every five seconds since I've been gone?" Bones quipped as they sat down with coffee and pastry in hand. If he was going to not be able to drink, Jim needed a brownie.

"Yes." Because the wedding ring was 10 times better. They found it at some crazy little shop on a mission three months ago. After Nyota deemed it non-toxic, they just had to get it.

"You know at this time last year you were mentally planning your own wedding. Now you're all annoyed about me actually getting married." Jim found it irritating. That was part of why he made his protégé and former assistant, his best woman. (Also there were bonus points for annoying a few traditional assholes by choosing a female best person instead of a best man.)

"I realized that I didn't need a piece of paper." Plus, Carol didn't want one because she has more daddy issues then Jim, which he didn't think was possible. Let's not even go into the fact that even though Carol does wear the ruby engagement ring everywhere, she refuses to call it an engagement ring. Jim is just going to let his friends do whatever they want.

Right now, that means bringing out the baby pictures. Bones digital wallet contained a slideshow of the best of baby Davida.

"Okay, my goddaughter is too cute." Especially in the 'Future Captain' onesie that Jim got her. "She's just the most adorable future captain ever."

"That cuteness is necessary especially after a day like yesterday which included the emergency delivery of octuplets." Leonard frowned.

"Does that mean you miss the joys of the Enterprise or are you glad to be here?" Jim asked.

"I'm happy to be with my family. I'm not happy to be living in a giant snow globe in space. All we need is one system to fail and we are all dead." Yep, still as paranoid as ever.

"Now you're making me reconsider why I was even thinking about taking a position here." Jim mumbled under his breath, but Leonard still heard him. He wasn't really planning on saying anything until he knew where he was going to end up, but it just sort of slipped.

"So, the Vulcan's biological clock is ticking and you're thinking of taking a desk assignment that allows for kids to make him happy." Bones didn't even bother to phrase that is a question.

"Yes, although not just for him. Wait, why do you assume that?" Jim asked slightly annoyed.

"Because it's the reason why he almost did not end up your first officer in the first place." It was also the thing that made Nyota start to wonder if something wasn't quite right in their relationship.

"I always wanted to live 'the white picket fence lifestyle', albeit not on a giant snow globe in the middle of space. You, on the other hand were always searching for the next adventure. At the Academy, you always dreamed of having your own ship. You never dreamed of having a desk job and a house full of kids. Now, the hobgoblin wants pointy eared babies and you're completely changing everything around for that. Is that how you want to start your marriage?" Jim will not roll his eyes at that.

"Sometimes you make compromises."

"Having kids is not something you should compromise on because children shouldn't have to live in that type of misery."

"Who says I don't want kids? Am I not the one who picked out everything for your daughter's nursery? Almost all of her toys came from me. I'm the best honorary uncle ever." Jim asked with a pout.

"Godchildren are different than actual children. You can't send them home when you get bored." Bones pointed out.

"I know that. I had that childhood. I know my mom loved me, but she didn't know how to deal with me. I won't put my kids through that. We're compromising on location, not on having kids because that's something we both want at some point down the road. It's just that Spock wants to be on the colony and I want to be at least a few light years away from my father-in-law at all times."

"Understandable, considering how bad things were with my first father-in-law." Neither will say anything about being happy his second (almost) father-in-law was dead because that would be in poor taste (regardless that it was the truth).

"At least, I get along with my father-in-law better than I do with your replacement. I'm pretty sure she's trying to kill me and Sarek has yet to do that." The key word there is yet.

"Jim, you do realize I'm a physician, not a therapist? However, I wonder if I need to give you a couple of names."

"I am not delusional." Jim said, annoyed. "She gave me several bottles of Pop Your Cherry massage oil for my wedding shower present. Talk to Sulu to confirm it if you don't believe me."

"Dammit, I'm going to be dealing with paperwork tonight. This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't given her the Gregorian clap." So that's what he did or rather what she thought he did because that was so not him. "Although, that's no excuse for using medical records against your patients."

"Definitely no excuse for it. And if she was really looking at my medical records, even for revenge purposes, she would know that it wasn't me. I never had the Gregorian clap or any other STI for that matter. I've only ever done bareback with Spock despite the existence of contraceptive and anti-STI hypos." Jim said super annoyed.

"I assumed that you just went to someone else for that sort of thing, in an effort to be a good friend. I don't want to know what you and the hobgoblin do in your spare time. I definitely don't want to know about your STI history." Bones lamented.

"And I don't want to video chat you with your girlfriend breast-feeding in the background, but I deal with it." Not because breast-feeding bothers Jim, but because Spock gets extra Vulcan about it. Jim's pretty sure it's the biological clock ticking and not an issue with what happened in the other time line.

"You could try not calling during meal times." Bones retorted.

"Time zones are really hard to figure out when you're on a starship at warp 99% of the time." Jim shrugged. "But I call because I miss you. Although, moments like these make me wonder why."

"Because you can only spend so much time with the hobgoblin without going crazy." Bones retorted.

"Please, don't call my fiancée that," Jim said, just as he noticed his favorite Vulcan had just stepped inside the little café. "Especially because he's now here and in line."

"Seriously, can't you guys be separated for more than an hour at a time?"

"Actually, it's been two hours and 15 minutes since I last saw him." Jim joked and Bones rolled his eyes. "I will have you know that I attempted to broker a peace treaty yesterday without Spock."

"How did that go?" Bones took a long drink of his coffee.

"I have scratches on my chest and teeth marks on my ass and not the good type either." Jim admitted causing Bones to choke on his coffee.

"I don't want to know." Just then Spock made his way to their table. Jim couldn't help but kiss him. They were still in uniform, but they were on vacation.

"Okay, you taste like chocolate. That pretty much tells me that the meeting with your father was awful."

"It was less than optimal." Spock took the seat beside him.

"'Less than optimal' is a chocolate chip cookie. Bad is maybe a small sugar-free mocha frappe. That," Jim said pointing to the really, large drink Spock just placed on the table, "is a venti hot chocolate with extra syrup. That means disaster ahead. Did your father try to convince you to dump me at the altar again?"

"Why would my father ask me to leave you at a place for ritual sacrifice?" Oh God, Spock was deliberately misunderstanding the question. That's never good.

"Now I remember why I put up with living on Starbase snow globe. I didn't miss that either." Bones mumbled under breath.

"You know I think we've been doing this job way too long, if when I say the term altar you think of human sacrifice." Jim joked because his fiancée wasn't the only one who could deflect with humor. With his childhood, Jim had gotten very good at it.

"We did have to rescue you from such an altar 6.2 weeks ago." Jim groaned at his fiancée's words.

"You didn't mention that." And now Bones was pissed at him for not telling him about something that may or may not have been a near death incident.

"I'm pretty sure I said something about an away mission that went badly."

"Every other mission is an away mission that went badly." Bones was 30 seconds from screaming at him. Not good.

Thankfully, before Spock gave anymore details about what happened (i.e. that Jim had spent two days unconscious in Sickbay after the incident) Kristen showed up and placed Davida in her daddy's arms. Bones became instantly calm. However, Kristen looked extremely pissed. Why did he have a feeling that there was some drama in paradise? That had to be the case because Nyota was not here with her. Jim honestly expected them to be connected at the lips or pelvis for most of the next two weeks.

"It's time for baby Davida to have some daddy mommy time, so Aunt Kristen finds a nice no strings attached fuck because she's tired of being in love with someone who can't make up her fucking mind." Kristen screamed causing everyone in the coffee shop to stare at her. Definitely trouble in paradise.

Jim typed a quick text message to Nyota that said "Why exactly is your girlfriend cursing your very existence right now?"

"You now owe 20 credits to the swear jar fund. I don't even want details regarding what went wrong with your girlfriend." Bones complained.

"That's the problem. She doesn't even accept that she actually is my girlfriend and I can't deal with it anymore. Seriously, how did you take this for four years?" Kristen asked turning to Spock.

"I was in serious denial about my own sexual orientation and our relationship was more platonic than it should have been." Spock answered nonplus.

"Which totally explains the mixed signals. You two are so perfect for each other. She still wears that necklace you gave her." Jim knew exactly what Kristen was talking about and it honestly didn't bother him.

"Because even though it belonged to Amanda, Spock won't take it back because that's not the Vulcan way. Nyota has offered to return it six times in the last four years. Also, it would just look weird on me."

"Said jewelry was helpful in recovering you and Nyota 3.1 months ago when you were kidnapped during a humanitarian mission." Spock added.

"How many times have you been kidnapped while I've been on this godforsaken snow globe?" Bones asked in annoyance. Only twice, but he's not going to tell Bones that. Really, Spock, stop answering so forthright.

"This is not a snow globe." Spock deadpanned.

"Actually, it will be on the 24th. They release plastic snow through the ventilation system. I've been told it's pretty great." Jim is not entirely sure Kristen is joking about that.

"God, I hate this forsaken place. I hope your cousin gets promoted somewhere nice, like Risa next time." Bones lamented.

"Do you think, maybe, you should actually, I don't know, talk to Nyota and explain why you're not happy? Why aren't you happy? What actually happened?" Jim asked, mostly because Nyota had yet to answer his emergency text message.

"We ran into one of my classmates at the dress shop. I started to introduce Nyota as my girlfriend, but she cut me off and said we were just friends."

"You let me refer to you as just friends this morning. Have you to actually sat down and talked about this?"

"But it's you and you know better."

'Because I have to keep deleting your dirty emails off the server.' Jim thought to himself.

"I don't see why that's necessary. If you've been fucking around exclusively for more than six months, you're dating."

"Swear jar." Bones demanded. "You're also expected to be a family dinner tonight. I doubt you'll find anyone to sleep with there. Maybe you should invite Nyota so you can talk things out."

"You just said dammit a few moments ago. Hey, is Christine bi?"

"No." Bones said clutching his daughter a little bit closer.

"You can do better. Plus, she's also had the Gregorian clap at least once." And that earned Jim a glare from his friend.

"Not in front of the baby." Bones was actually covering his little girl's ears.

"Did you give it to her?" Kristen asked.

"Why does everybody assume that when I've been in a monogamous relationship for almost 4 years?" He holds up his hand that is laced with Spock's to emphasize his point. "I didn't even sleep around that much before."

"Kitty cat twins three-way." Kristen said poignantly.

"That just means I am adventurous." And at that point I was still waiting on Spock to admit that he was really, truly gay. "I just do the really crazy stuff with my fiancé now. It's really hypocritical for you to point that out considering you did…" he was cut off by the baby suddenly screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Okay, somebody obviously wants a bottle. We'll see you tomorrow at the rehearsal breakfast/walk-through." Leonard said using that as an excuse to leave.

"Will you be able to get along with Spock's best woman tomorrow?" Jim asked deciding to be serious.

"Maybe. You guys have 30 minutes before you have to be at the tailors. Please be there on time and no giving and or receiving head in the dressing room. Do that in your private time."

"Now we're just going to have to do that just because you said not to." The fact that Spock was not glaring at him pretty much told Jim that they were so going to try that later.

"By the way, Spock we were able to find a maternity dress for your stepmom. I wish you would've told me about the pregnancy beforehand, but whatever. It's done."

"Alexis is pregnant?" Jim asked and Kristen took that moment to run out of the coffee shop. So not a good sign.

"Yes." Spock took a long drink of his hot cocoa.

"And you found out at your meeting with your father?"

"Yes. Alexis is approximately 6.1 months pregnant with twins after three rounds of in vitro fertilization. Apparently, Sarek did not deem this important enough to tell me before now." Over the years, Jim had become very good at reading in between the Spock lines. What his fiancée was really saying was, Sarek did not deem me important enough to tell me about this. Jim wished he could tell Spock that wasn't the case, but it could be with Sarek. The man had issues.

"That's not good."

"Actually, he blamed his omission on my lack of close proximity. In addition to being afraid of a possible miscarriage. He also essentially stated that such gaps would not occur if we were living on the same planet."

"That is really not good."

"I am unable to quantify my feelings regarding this. I also received the personal effects from my other self. He carried a picture of you everywhere he went." That was when Jim noticed the large bag Spock was carrying. So not good.

"Another hot chocolate for the road?" Jim offered because he did not know what else to say.

"Yes."

* * *

During this Christmas time shore leave, the worst thing that was supposed to happen was a fight breaking out between the various delegations at the Starfleet wedding of the century or having to reprimand everybody who gave Jim creepy Christmas theme sex toys at the bridal shower (although Spock did receive gift bag that included a ball gag at his science department bachelor party). Instead, it was total chaos.

Things started going downhill when she referred to Kristin as just a friend in front of one of Kristen's classmates because Nyota felt like it was no one's business who she's dating. In hindsight, Nyota realized that was not the right thing to do. Also quibbling over semantics was stupid, but technically they never agreed that they were dating. That was how she ended up spending the night on the Sulu family's couch. (Spock may be her best friend, but she is not staying over when she knew that they would be doing one thing and one thing only.)

"You should probably go over to her apartment with apology cookies tomorrow. Ben says that there's this great bakery in sector six." Hikaru told her as he handed her a blanket.

"I don't even get why you keep denying that you guys are together because you've been dating for four years."

"I don't think it counts when the other person is dating someone else." Nyota quipped. "And we never said that we were actually dating."

"Again you guys have been off and on for four years. Labels are ridiculous sometimes. It comes down to what you feel. The real question is, are you in love with her? If you are, then everything else will sort itself out."

"Even five years on a starship and having a kid with someone else?" She asked.

"Yes, and he was actually with me when that happened." Okay, she didn't know that particular detail, nor had she ever wanted to.

"Sometimes I think you're worse than the happily engaged couple." Nyota shook her head.

"Yet you're taking my daughter to the zoological research center after the rehearsal from hell." To make up for crashing there tonight she was giving her friend some private time with his husband.

"I think I'm also going to have to get baked goods before the rehearsal."

"Yes, if you don't want to ruin your best friend's wedding." He smiled at her.

"I think Spock would totally forgive me, since I actually set him up with his almost husband in the first place."

"Will Jim?"

"Cookies and groveling it is."

* * *

Getting Spock totally sloshed on chocolate seem like a good idea once they survived the suit fitting (Spock wouldn't let him see the final product, the bastard). He knew Spock was a little jealous because the twins would probably have a better relationship with Sarek than Spock ever did. Of course mind altering substances would need to be involved before Spock would ever consider talking about it.

He also knew it would take them being drunk before they could go through other Spock's possessions. They got as far as seeing what their friends would look like in 30 years before they decided that maybe they should finish the other half of the Jack Daniels. Even his jokes about the strange, ridiculous uniforms didn't help. Jim made a mental note about assuring something like that never gets approved in this timeline.

When they were woken up at 2:24 AM for an emergency (which always seemed to happen during their shore leave), Jim questioned the wisdom of all of yesterday's choices, especially drunken sex until midnight. It seemed unfair that Vulcan hangovers could usually be alleviated with a little meditation and a bottle of water. Spock did that while Jim made his way to HQ trying not to wince as he walked.

While they had been sleeping, an escape pod from a non-federation research vessel showed up unexpectedly asking for assistance. They were doing something science related in the nearby nebula when things went badly and they ended up crashing on a nearby planet. The pod's occupant, Kalara, requested a ship that could enter the nebula to save her crew. Due to being the most advance ship at Yorktown (not under construction), the Enterprise was 'volunteered' along with its crew to save those most likely stranded on an unknown planet.

However, Jim and Spock were not supposed to be among the crew, because apparently playing host to 200+ diplomats was more important than saving the lives of innocents. At least, that's what certain idiots in Starfleet believed. That was why Commander Paris decided that Enterprise would rescue Kalara's crew with Sulu as Acting Captain and Nyota as Acting First Officer.

(Technically, it should've been Scotty as acting First, but the engineer hated being away from his engines for any significant period of time. Plus, his number two was producing acidic mucus again because Christmas is cold and flu season on Enterprise and probably shouldn't be anywhere near the engine room right now.)

Under normal circumstances, Jim probably would be okay with his crew being out there without him, but something didn't feel right. Jim wasn't sure what it was, but something felt off about Kalara's story. The last time he felt this uncomfortable around a person Jim had just met was when he'd met stepdad number two.

The man had seemed like a good guy right up until Jim got a phone call from San Francisco PD about his mother's husband bashing her skull in. Since that resulted in Jim spending all of Christmas 2259 in ICU waiting for the doctors to take Winona off life support, he felt it best to listen to his gut. He didn't speak up last time and now his mom was dead. He knew better this time around.

"With all due respect, Commodore Paris, I'm not letting my crew go out there alone into uncharted space, especially if they will lose all contact with Starfleet once they go into the nebula." If this was all going to go to hell, he needed to be there.

"Captain, we will be fine." Sulu tried to reassure him. "It's a simple rescue mission and you trained us well."

"Dr. McCoy will also be accompanying Enterprise due to the potential medical nature of the emergency."

"I know that Dr. Chapel is leaving, but we do have other competent doctors on Enterprise." And I really, really feel like something's off and I don't want to be responsible for my goddaughter joining the Starfleet orphans club. "Dr. McCoy is the most qualified physician on Yorktown and would be best for a mass casualty situation that could be waiting for you on Altamid." Paris argued and she had a point.

"If you are chosen for the vice admiral position that you applied for, your crew will be traveling without you going forward." Shit! Outside of his fiancée, only Nyota and Leonard knew he was thinking about a desk job. For half a second Sulu looked hurt, but he quickly covered it up.

"You were also the one who put Commander Sulu's name forward to take over despite the fact he has yet to serve as first officer."

"You applied for an Admiralty position and you suggested me as your replacement?" Sulu asked surprised.

"Well, I can't recommend Spock since I'm taking him with me." Jim said with half a smile.

"So you're thinking of a desk job because of your fiancé's ticking biological clock?" Sulu asked and Paris was looking annoyed.

"Why does everyone keep saying that? You had a kid even before taking a desk job."

"By accident. And I know your future husband is baby obsessed because keeps asking questions about surrogacy that I can't answer since we didn't go that route." Sulu's daughter was the result of a drunken three-way involving him, his husband, and Admiral Chan's daughter (and Jim was sworn to secrecy to never tell the little girl about this).

"They're still my crew for at least six more months. I don't want to sit on the sidelines." If his feeling was right and if something did go wrong while he's not there, he would never forgive himself.

"However, the ceremony is of utmost importance to the Federation." Jim rolled his eyes at the fact she referred to it as 'the ceremony'. It wasn't a ceremony, it was his fucking wedding and he knew his future husband well enough that he would have no trouble changing the date if it meant keeping their crew safe. His honey bear was just that type of Vulcan.

"The ceremony doesn't take place until the 25th."

"Fine. I'm sure protocol can go through tomorrow's run through without you." Jim was fairly certain that was sarcasm, but he didn't care.

* * *

Jim hated being right. He really, really hated being right. About five minutes after making their way through the nebula everything went to shit. That's when they were attacked by the evil swarm of death. Seriously, why did no one think about designing weapons that can deal with tiny little swarm like ships?

The bastards were taking his baby out piece by piece. It was almost as if they had the damn schematics. Actually, they probably did have the schematics. (Note to self: yell at Starfleet for not listening to his lengthy report about cyber vulnerabilities.) Scotty, was trying to keep things going, but it wasn't working. Every time he had an idea of how to maybe get them out of here alive, the evil swarm of death countered it.

According to Spock, they were fucking with the ship because they wanted the artifact from hell. Why were they attacking his baby because of that fucking peace offering that the Teenaxian leader did not even want? But they did and they were killing his crew for it. That's why he removed the artifact from storage and hid it with Ensign Syl before the bastard could get to it.

With the ship failing, he went to manually separate the saucer which resulted in his getting choked and not in a fun way. He also watched helplessly as Nyota sacrificed herself to complete the separation for him. Spock was going to kill him for leaving his BFF with a madman, but only after Kristen kicked him in the balls because fighting or not, Kristen had been in love with Nyota for almost five years.

They tried everything to escape, but all was lost. He wanted to cry as the abandon ship siren blared in the background. His heart felt heavy as he ordered the remaining bridge crew to their Kelvin pods. He was the last to get into his. They were in the planet's atmosphere at that point. He wondered if that's why his pod wasn't intercepted by the evil swarm. As he sat there alone inside the pod watching his home of the last almost 5 years crumbled down, he knew he'd made the right choice in coming with his crew. (Okay, the right choice would have been talking Paris out of this mission, but that probably would've only led to a psych consult, despite what actually happened.)

He had been right. That woman was leading them into an ambush. Although, he wasn't thinking this type of ambush. He was thinking more along the lines of kidnapping and human sacrifice with him being the only victim not the entire fucking ship. (He'd rather be the sacrifice then Sulu because he hated being responsible for making more members of the Starfleet orphans club.)

Jim wished that they had done the Vulcan part of the ceremony earlier because then he would at least be able to communicate with Spock telepathically. He knew that Spock was alive because as they discovered this summer when other Spock passed, Jim could feel that sort of thing even light years away due to the mind melding with both Spocks. Jim had no idea if Spock was captured by the bastard. He just wanted to know that Spock was okay. Of course at that moment he felt a large stabbing pain in his abdominal and promptly lost consciousness.

To be continued


	3. Love You

A/N: This chapter runs parallel to the second act of Star Trek Beyond. Some lines/situations have been modified or adapted from Star Trek Beyond written by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung. I'm not using many direct quotes because our characters are a bit different. Life changes things.

 **Chapter 3: Love You**

* * *

"You know, I thought when we moved to Yorktown I wouldn't have to deal with you leaving the Starbase for a medical emergency - at least not in the middle of the night." Carol said as she stood by the door watching him get dressed in his emergency response uniform, which looked very close to the old blue uniform he'd worn when on the Enterprise.

Thankfully, Davida was starting to fall back asleep after being woken up 15 minutes earlier because he was being called in for a rescue operation. His nearly five-month-old daughter was still trying to master the art of sleeping through the night. It probably didn't help that her parents went into work at weird hours and got called in for emergencies way too often.

"I'm a doctor. You've always known that I have odd hours. It's already 3 AM. I would be waking up in about an hour for rounds if I wasn't supposed to be at Jim's wedding rehearsal today." He said as he grabbed his medical bag.

"Or to feed Davida before getting ready for rounds. For some reason, she thinks 3 AM is a perfectly respectable time for breakfast." Carol said with a smirk. His little girl usually did demand a bottle before letting him even get dressed for work when he had the early morning shift. She was very spoiled that way.

"And at least here, I am getting called out for actual emergencies, not Jim Kirk sex-related allergy attacks." As much as he missed all his friends, he definitely did not miss that. How can someone have that many allergies? He chalked it up to being born in space 11 weeks early.

"One would assume that a research ship crash landing on the nearby planet counts as an emergency. Are they worried about mass casualties? Is that why they're calling you in to assist Enterprise?" Carol asked concerned as she kept rocking their daughter. This would be his third such assignment since relocating to Starbase snow globe. He had found out that being on a deep space base does mean participating in the occasional rescue mission when nearby ships are in danger.

"Probably." Also, your BFF tried to poison Jim and is now under investigation along with several of her other colleagues who did nothing to prevent it which is why Enterprise needs a good doctor and you didn't get to have dinner with your friend last night.

"I'm just glad that I'm getting out of the rehearsal with protocol this morning." Carol's cousin had been talking about this monstrosity of a wedding for weeks. If he heard one more thing about culturally appropriate table settings, he was going to scream. He was a doctor not a damn wedding planner. It was almost enough to make him happy about Jim choosing Kristen as the best person, almost.

"You're not upset that Jim is getting married and we are not?" Carol asked.

"No, of course not. I learned last time that a piece of paper means very little. Also, do you really want to be coming up with seating charts for 600 people? We are probably going to end up sitting next to Hobgoblin Senior." Leonard explained. "I just don't want to spend more time than I have to with the Hobgoblin's relatives."

"No one wants to spend quality time with family members they hate." Carol smirked "There's a reason why Kristen is the only member of my family that I still talk to."

"Who is currently camped out on our couch due to her stellar relationship skills." He said pointing to the 21-year-old in their living room.

"I'm sure that she'll leave as soon as Nyota and she can work things out. They're in love with each other. I just think they need to stop pretending." Carol tried to say reassuringly.

"Which won't happen until we get back from the rescue mission."

"How long do you think you'll be gone?" Carol asked. "I assume you will be back before the wedding is supposed to take place."

"Probably, because Jim wouldn't do anything to jeopardize his perfect Christmas wedding. He wants to shout it from the rooftops that he's with the hobgoblin." Leonard said slightly disgusted. Again, he knows way too much about this wedding. The suit fitting two days ago was enough for him.

"I thought Lieutenant Commander Sulu was supposed to be in charge of this mission. That's why he called you."

"There's no way they're going to be able to ground Jim. Where Jim goes the hobgoblin follows or vice versa. It's the reason why I know Jim will never take a desk job even if he did apply to be the Rear Admiral here. He would be tearing his hair out in a week."

"Although, Spock does have the temperament for it." Carol added and she would know because her father was an admiral. "I hope you're right, because you are not missing our baby's first Christmas." He wasn't surprise she said this. Carol's father missed every Christmas except for two from the time she was born until she left for the Academy. Actually, she spent more Christmases with him while she was at the Academy than all the years before.

"I don't think I will. We shouldn't be gone very long. This is a simple mission. Retrieve and treat the crash survivors and then get back to Yorktown. I'll be back in under two days." He reassured her. "I will definitely be back in time for our daughter's first Christmas. Promise."

"You better be because we still haven't got her picture with Santa or the giant polar bear yet," Carol says as she walked over to straighten out his shirt before walking him to the front door of their apartment.

"We will do it as soon as I get back, I promise. Try to go back to sleep for a few hours before Miss D asks for breakfast."

"She's already grabbing at my shirt, so I doubt that's going to work. Maybe she'll actually sleep for real after she gets a snack." She told him walking him to the door.

"Hopefully." He leaned over and kissed her goodbye.

"I love you. Remember that while you're gone." Carol said pulling away.

"Love you too." Leonard said before leaning down and kissing his daughter on the forehead. "You too baby girl."

* * *

 _Carol is going to fucking kill me if I ever get off this godforsaken planet_. Leonard thought to himself after crawling out of the remains of the alien ship that was part of the great swarm that destroyed Enterprise. Leonard McCoy over the years had come up with all the things that could go wrong on a starship and getting attacked by the swarm of death was never on the list.

Surviving by escaping in one of their ships also wasn't on his list. However, being stranded God knows where had made it, but once he took a nice 'desk job' on Yorktown he thought he was done with this. It just figured they had to get themselves crash landed four days before Christmas on a rock who knows where. Carol was going to kill him. The situation was too similar to how Carol lost her mom for Leonard's personal liking.

He was seriously wishing that Davis was asked to go on this farce of an emergency mission (because at this point he's pretty sure that no ship accidentally crash landed on this nightmare of a planet). At least he did until he noticed the Vulcan in distress next to him, because of course, Jim's fiancé just had to get a piece of metal stuck in his stomach about an inch from his heart. Stupid hobgoblin biology!

Naturally, he'd lost his medical supply bag during the escape from the ship of the damned. His only option was to cauterize the wound which definitely fell under the heading of 'do not try this at home' first aid.

"Did you and the toddler actually choose a color scheme or did Starfleet just pick one for you?" Leonard asked Spock as he started to heat up a loose piece of metal with one of the alien weapons.

"Protocol decided to take over that func…. Fuck!" Spock exclaimed with a scream as he removed whatever was sticking out of Spock's abdomen and quickly closed the gaping wound with the hot piece of metal in the other hand. He should probably be worried that the Vulcan was cursing, but he had been dating Jim for the last four years.

"They say it hurts less when you don't see it coming." Leonard remarked.

"Distracting me with questions regarding wedding preparations for a wedding that only has a 12% probability of happening on time is not the most effective way to distract me. Even if such a 'wives tale' was not complete and utter bullshit." Spock rounding up to the nearest whole number was never a good thing.

"You're not bleeding out anymore, so we might get you to the altar yet." The 'if the groom is still alive' thing goes unsaid, but apparently the hobgoblin knows what he's thinking.

"James is alive."

"How do you even know that? You two haven't done the Vulcan part of the ceremony yet." He was glad about that because why would anybody want someone else in their head all the time. On the other hand, he had been gone for seven months and it was obvious from yesterday's conversation that Jim doesn't really tell him as much as he used to. "Have you've done that part of the ceremony yet?"

"No, but we have melded several times before and because of that we have some connection. I am aware of his general well-being as he is of mine." Spock explained.

"This is another thing the toddler neglected to mention." Leonard mumbled under breath.

"We were unaware of it until this summer when Ambassador Spock passed." The hobgoblin replied even though he wasn't supposed to actually hear what Leonard said a few moments earlier. Damn, Vulcan hearing.

"Why does that matter?" Leonard asked.

"Jim felt him die."

Shit!

"Let's keep walking while I try to contact the ship," or anybody who survived. Leonard is 99% sure that the ship was not among the survivors. He just hopes a first-aid kit did.

He held on to that hope when Spock keeled over an hour later. At least the pointy eared bastard waited until they found shelter to lose consciousness. Maybe Jim can pick up on this Vulcan hocus-pocus and get them out of there. One could hope.

* * *

Jim opened his eyes to the sight of his navigator kissing him. Oh, Jim is sure Checkov is telling himself that he is performing CPR, but Jim is certain that he never stopped breathing.

It was at that moment that Jim realized that Nyota and Sulu were referring to Chekov having a problem with _his_ wedding during the bridal shower gift sort. Dammit, he did not have time to deal with this right now. It's been four years. Shouldn't the guy be over his crush by now?

 _You wouldn't have to be dealing with this right now if you dealt with his one-sided crush on you four years ago_ , a voice that suspiciously sounded like Nyota said in his head. 'Spock, please don't be dead. Please don't be dead. Please don't be dead.' Jim kept repeating in his head as if it were a mantra.

"I'm pretty sure I still have a fiancé." He refused to accept the cause of his blackout being Spock dying. He saw them taking the crew. Spock had to be safe. He just had to be.

"I vas trying to revive you, Keptain." Chekov answered.

"I never stopped breathing. Although kissing someone other than my fiancé provided enough of a shock to the system to wake me up." _Don't do that again. Ever_. He started putting on the survival gear in the pod. These are so much nicer than those weird red uniforms (not that Jim was very certain at the moment that he would live long enough to see those uniforms).

"Where is the one responsible for leading us into this trap?" Jim asked to avoid talking about anything else ridiculously awkward.

"Unconscious, sir." Because they now have a whole new set of awkward things to talk about.

"Why is she unconscious?" Jim asked.

"She attacked me once I helped her out of her escape pod. I had no choice but to shoot her." Too bad it was on stun, Jim thought to himself.

"It was the best course of action, considering she led us into a trap. Scan for survivors." Jim ordered. Spock is not dead, Spock is not dead, Spock is not dead.

"I saw several of our crew mates captured. I will secure our prisoner." Jim kind of wished he had his Merry Christmas handcuffs with him, but he's just going to have to use the jacket from the survival kit in Kalara's escape pod as a makeshift restraint. Thankfully, somebody put a knife in the kit. Now if only they put handcuffs or some other type of restraint that would've been lovely.

"I'm not picking up anything. What if they're…" Dead. He doesn't say the word because Jim won't let him.

"Then we make our way to the saucer. Anything has to be better than the minimal capabilities on a tricorder. Maybe on the way our prisoner will wake up and we'll find out why we were targeted."

Halfway to the saucer, she did wake up (which was helpful because she was heavy). Kalara told them some sob story about Krall taking her crew hostage and going along with his scheme only to save her crew. Jim doesn't believe her at all, but they don't let on which is how she led them to the coordinates of her boss' hideout. Jim and Chekov barely escaped with their lives, but she didn't because Jim is pretty sure the saucer crushed her during their escape. Good.

Unfortunately, it was too dark to make their way out to where Jim was sure the rest of his crew was being held at that point. Instead they took shelter in a cave hoping that one; they're not attacked by anybody. Two, this planet had really short nights, so they could find the others before the bad guy killed his crew or worse. And finally, that his navigator kept his hands to himself.

Jim's sex fantasy number 223 may be getting trapped in a cave with only a survival blanket and a partner for heat, but Jim had envisioned that other person being Spock. It certainly was not his navigator who harbored a serious crush on him. It was time for him to deal with this directly once and for all.

"You know I love my husband?" Jim said after declining a suggestion to share body heat. Again, if Spock was there he would be all for that, but Spock wasn't here.

"You are not married yet." Chekov responded. Jim did not have the patience to discuss semantics right now.

"Actually, we've already sign the marriage license, but that's beside the point. I love Spock with every part of me and I know he loves me the same way. I hope you find that type of love someday. I really do because after a certain point you realize jumping from bed to bed is very hollow. I'm hoping you figure that out years before I did, but I did figure it out. I want to spend the rest of my life with Spock." The 23-year-old wasn't even looking at him right now. He realized that Jim knew the truth.

"So take the survival blanket and I will keep watch." Jim said going to the mouth of the cave with phasers ready. Yes, he would love a couple of hours sleep, but he would like to not die in said sleep. Also he doesn't want to get molested again and he is not entirely sure his speech got through to his navigator.

* * *

Thankfully, all his wishes came true. The night on this planet was only about four hours and his navigator kept his hands to himself. Even better, no one found them. No one evil anyway. It would've been nice to come across another survivor, especially if that survivor was Spock, but that didn't happen.

"When did you realize that we couldn't trust her?" Chekov asked as they were walking towards the coordinates where the crew was most likely being held.

"From the beginning." Jim answered darkly. "She reminded me way too much of my second stepfather. He was like the nicest guy ever until he murdered my mom by bashing her head in."

"That's why you and Mister Spock did not stay behind?" Chekov asked, avoiding any discussions related to Jim's mother.

"Yes. Unfortunately, gut feelings are not enough evidence for Paris." Of course as soon as he said that they were enveloped in a brownish fog with no time to actually run. Now they were trapped in something solid. Shit.

If Spock and he just had a nice simple wedding on New Vulcan, none of this would've happened. Or maybe if they just decided to have a June wedding. Other than getting together with Spock in the first place, nothing good happened in December. Nothing.

* * *

" _Do you want to go to the funeral?" James asked once Spock ended the communication with his counterpart's assistant. It was her grim duty to notify both of them of the ambassador's passing, but due to reasons unknown it was merely a confirmation._

" _We_ _'re not that far from New Vulcan. HR knows you have about six months' worth of vacation time saved up. Sulu would love to spend some quality time in the Captain's seat." Jim said as he sat down and pulled Spock beside him._

 _They were in his ready room, because James felt it best to have this conversation in private. There's also the fact that James wouldn't stop touching him. Spock did not want to engage in inappropriate workplace displays of affection in front of the crew. When James felt the end of the ambassador's life, he originally thought it was his Spock who was no longer among the living. James did not believe that to be the case until Spock arrived on the bridge unharmed._

 _"It would be illogical to divert the Enterprise for such a frivolous pursuit." James gave him a very sad look._

 _"Grieving is not frivolous. It's necessary. I can't believe I just said that." James laughed. "Ask Kristen what happened after my mom died. She has years' worth of blackmail material from that alone."_

" _It is not necessary to distract her from her cousin giving birth." They were still waiting to receive word from Kristin when Dr. Marcus finally delivered. "I am aware that you put your stepfather in the hospital." As well as broke your hand._

" _I'm still surprised they didn'_ _t press charges._ _"_

" _Because the person you struck was not a very good person. He is currently in prison for at least 20 more years due to his crimes." Spock kept an eye on this individual to ensure James continued safety._

" _But not for what he did to mom. No, he's in jail right now because of the next woman that he put in a coma." James words were bitter._

 _"But he is still incarcerated." Spock said pointedly._

 _"I know, but it doesn't bring her back." James shook his head. "I didn't handle things very logically at the time. I didn't even tell anybody what was going on. I try to deal with everything myself and that went badly. But you're more logical than me, so I think you should do better than me. I mean, he's you. That has to be a bit of a mind fuck."_

 _"It is. He is not me and yet he is. I feel that he would not want me to mourn his passing, but celebrate his life." Spock explained._

" _There's probably something inherently cool about living in two different timelines. So we can drink a chocolate martini to his life on the colony and build a couple of houses before we leave." James placed an arm around him._

 _"I am afraid if I arrive on the colony, I will feel the desire to not depart." The illogical guilt that he felt about not doing his share to keep his species alive would most likely increase if he were on the colony. His father's disappointment would be enough to overwhelm._

" _You feel the overwhelming need to be there, so naturally you feel like a bad Vulcan because you're not. Before you could convince yourself that other Spock was doing your part and you could stay here, but now that he's gone… You're not going to dump me for a proper Vulcan wife so you can pop out little Vulcans?" James tried to make his question sound like a joke, but Spock could see in his eyes that he was completely serious._

 _"That is not necessary. Thanks to the endangered species DNA bank, we are able to receive a donor Vulcan ova." Despite what certain prejudicial Vulcans tried to block._

" _That means you only have to fuck a petri dish which I'm cool with. The bigger problem is you can't exactly have kids on a starship until they at least hit their preteen years. I just lost my favorite doctor due to that. We both know that Sulu really misses his family. He's definitely a stronger man than me because I couldn't take being separated from you for months at a time, if not years with only really dirty emails to keep me company."_

" _You did delete those emails?"_

" _Yes, at the same time I got rid of all of the naughty messages that I send you." Spock is very thankful for._

" _After my screwed up childhood, I don't think I could take leaving our kid behind with your dad and stepmom. I mean, it would be different if one of us could stay behind, but I'm not sure we could take being away from each other for more than a month. Plus, too much time on the colony would probably give me sunstroke."_

" _Your argument is sound. But you do want to have children eventually, as long as we raise them somewhere advantageous for human skin?"_

 _"Yes, but it's not something we have to work the details out on right now. We have decades longer if we put some of your guys on ice."_

" _I'm uncertain if it is appropriate to assign a particular gender to sperm. Also, actual ice is not the best way to preserve a specimen."_

" _Should I be happy that you are cracking jokes? Right now, the immediate thing you need to decide is do you want to go to the funeral? We can discuss proper specimen storage scenarios later."_

 _"No. I don't think I'm able to." Spock responded after thinking about it for several moments._

 _"Okay." James ran his fingers through Spock's hair. "I'm not going to push, but we are taking the afternoon off for grief leave."_

" _That is not necessary. I am able to function adequately." Spock argued._

" _Maybe you can function adequately, but not well. I think we both learned from past experiences that we make very bad decisions when we're grieving, like strangling me or nearly beating an enhanced human being to death."_

 _"I find that argument logical, but not necessary. I am handling this loss better than the previous two occasions." All due to James to helping him process his emotions._

" _That's not going to work. We are taking time off together. Captain's orders. Besides, we should let Sulu be in charge every once in a while."_

" _Okay," James went forward and kissed him on the mouth._

 _"Good. Now let me make you feel better." Spock felt James fingers wander towards his zipper._

 _"It is inappropriate to engage in coitus in your ready room." And sex doesn't take away the confusing emotions that I am experiencing at the moment_ , _Spock thought to himself as he pushed James hand away from his crotch. Although he made no move to re-zip his pants._

 _"Like we haven't done it before." James mouth was pressed up against his neck as his Spock suddenly remembered that James favorite coping mechanism was sex. James felt other Spock die. James thought he had died. Of course his fiancée would be craving physical affirmation that Spock was still with him._

 _"Not during alpha shift." They could at least wait until they were in their quarters._

 _"What about fellatio?" That's when James fell to his knees._

 _"That would be inappropriate, Ja…." His words were cut short by the feel of James mouth, enveloping his…_

"Perfect. You're suffering massive blood loss and you're fantasizing about screwing your boyfriend. I really don't want to hear your sex noises." He heard the voice of Dr. McCoy say from in front of him.

That's when he realized that he wasn't in Jim's ready room, but in a dwelling on an unknown planet. Technically, James ready room didn't even exist anymore. Their ship, their home, for almost 5 years was now nothing more than wreckage on this planet.

"I was contemplating the nature of mortality." He replied which was technically accurate given the conversation he had been reliving. At that point during the original conversation, they were interrupted by Kristin calling to let them know that Davida Marcus-McCoy arrived happy and healthy only 20 minutes earlier.

"Again, something only done when suffering major blood loss." The doctor quipped. "Although, I'm not sure I'm buying that because I heard you moaning your boyfriend's name."

"Fear of death is illogical." Spock responded, not addressing the doctors other comment.

"Says the Vulcan who runs to get me every time his boyfriend blows up like a balloon due to sex gone wrong. That's okay, because that fear is what keeps us alive and your fear of losing Jim is probably what's kept him around so long. Jim has the self-preservation skills of a slug."

"Your argument is sound." Spock replied as he winced in pain.

"We'll get you back to your honey bear soon. Then you can continue on with your plans to make Jim take a desk job and I can get back to my daughter. I am not missing her first Christmas." Spock picked up on resentment in his voice as he spoke about Jim's decision to choose a new job.

"James wants to take a position at Yorktown because he misses your friendship or rather your physical presence." And if this continues the way Spock fears, James will need the doctor more than anything. Spock was uncertain if he would leave this planet.

"I thought you'd be happy about me no longer being there. No more losing time with your boyfriend because Jim is off having a drink with me." Spock found those words from the doctor puzzling.

"I thought you were well aware of the respect I harbor for you. You are one of James' dearest confidants. I consider you one of mine as well. Over the years, I have grown to respect you greatly. Even I have noticed the lack of your supportive presence on the Enterprise these last seven months." Spock replied honestly and yet, Dr. McCoy scoffed.

"Yet you convinced Jim to have Kristen as his best woman. You probably only miss me because of Christine trying to poison him."

"Dr. Chapel is not the only reason, although you are a highly competent physician. Also, James chose Kristen because he felt you needed to focus on your daughter and thought you did not have time to assist with wedding preparations. Lastly, James is using the opportunity to play matchmaker."

"Of course he is playing matchmaker and those two need all the help they can get." The doctor shook his head.

"Matchmaker, matchmaker, find me a match." Spock believes that he may have sung that, but he was uncertain.

"Oh God, you're delirious." Dr. McCoy replied with a dark look on his face.

* * *

The upside to getting caught in that boobytrap from hell was that they had found Scotty and his new friend, Jaylah, who just happened to have a ship. Granted, it's an antique that's probably older than Grandpa Tiberius would've been, but its' sensors located the survivors and Scotty pulled off a miracle and managed to beam Spock aboard with the transporter that was originally intended just for cargo.

Okay, maybe kissing Spock the moment he appeared on the transporter pad wasn't the best idea, but really, he couldn't help himself. He vaguely heard Scotty explaining how they were able to get them here after Bones was beamed aboard, but Jim was preoccupied. Really, he could kiss his Vulcan all day.

"Step away from the Vulcan. He is too hurt for you to manhandle." Bones demanded just as Jaylah asked, "Are they knocking boots?" Jim would snicker if he was not concerned with Spock's lack of response to the Earth colloquialism.

"I am fine." Spock tried to reassure Jim before he wobbled as if he was about to collapse. Not a good sign. Neither was the large amount of green blood on Spock's shirt. Now Jim knew why he nearly lost consciousness.

"If you were fine, you would be making snide comments about the term 'knocking boots' even though you know what it means because you've heard enough classical hip-hop during sex to be familiar with the old euphemism." Jim said leading his boyfriend to the couch.

"You have answered my question James T." Their new ally said from the side.

"Although how do you know that term?" Jim was extra wary right now and was having trouble trusting just about everyone.

"She learned standard by listening to classical music." Scotty explained. That got him to calm down enough to focus on the injured Vulcan at hand.

"I think you lectured me enough times on the ambiguousness of that word to know that you are anything but fine." James placed his hand against Spock's damaged stomach.

"Does this thing have any medical supplies?" Leonard called from the side, resulting in Scotty's friend leading the other two away to get whatever medical supplies she had on this thing.

"So I'm pretty sure that despite what Paris wants, we won't be having a Christmas wedding after all. I'm not even sure if we'll be off the planet by that point." Jim said as he laid his fiancée out on one of the couches. "See this is why we are never, ever planning anything for this time a year again. Nothing good happens between Halloween and our birthdays, well, my birthday anyway."

"It is illogical to assume that a particular time of year is cursed. We were attacked because of the artifact we had on board. No matter the time of the year we arrive to this area, we've would've been attacked for the artifact. I believe it actually came from this planet." Spock winces as he talks. He was also using multiple contractions. Not good.

"Rest," Jim places his fingers up against Spock's lips. "We'll talk once you're better. Then we'll figure out how to get out of this." Not that he had any idea how they would get out of this, but they would figure it out. They always did.

"You should focus your efforts on…" He stops Spock's words by placing his fingers back against his lover's lips.

"Not happening, Spock bear. You know I make awful decisions when you're not there to ground me. No ship, no crew, but I have you. Having you, loving you can make the impossible possible, but I need to make sure that you stay around." Jim said as he gently kissed Spock on the lips.

"I can't leave you two unsupervised for a minute." Bones said reentering the room with something that may or may not have been medical equipment from the last century.

"Can you please help my husband?"

"The ceremony has yet to happen." Bones complained.

"Doesn't matter."

"I'll try, Jim, but I'm not 100% sure that these tools will actually do that. They're from the dark ages. Although this should stop the internal hemorrhaging, I think." Bones said as he went to work on Spock.

At that point, his fiancée started quoting Shakespeare and his idiot friend had to make a comment about Spock being at death's door. _Please, let that just be hyperbole._

* * *

Right now Nyota was seriously regretting not calling that bakery and arranging to have an apology cookie bouquet delivered to Kristin. She'd never made it to the bakery in person because she had ended up being called into Starfleet HQ before 3 AM. It's never a good thing when they call in a communications officer in the middle of the night especially when said officer is on shore leave.

Of course they were calling her in not as Chief Communications Officer, but as Acting First Officer of Enterprise because they were planning to send the ship on a rescue mission without her regular captain or first officer due to wedding madness. Needless to say, Jim would not have any of that. (Idiot!)

Leonard was also called and because what's a rescue mission without a doctor. She could do without the overprotective pseudo-uncle talk when he found her just before boarding. _Why did he have to be called in for this?_ (Because apparently, half of the Enterprise medical team was being investigated for the potentially lethal bridal party gift incident.)

"As you've been dating Kristin since before she could drink, you should probably already know that if a Marcus woman is pissed at you, it is probably your fault. I'm only telling you this because I actually like you. Please apologize so she leaves my couch." The doctor told her the next morning.

"She stayed at your house last night?" Nyota asked slightly surprised and a little worried.

"Yes. She wasn't ready to see you, but she didn't want to kick you out." Leonard sighed.

"I slept over at the Sulu house last night for similar reasons."

"You two are not supposed to act like teenagers. Be the grown-up you are and talk to her."

"I will when we get back." She told him before heading to the bridge.

* * *

About three hours later, she would genuinely regret her spat with Kristen. She would also wish that Leonard, Jim, and Spock had stayed behind when the ship was attacked. Granted, the ship was destroyed, but at least she successfully separated the saucer to give everyone else a fighting chance.

Of course, it led to her being trapped with a psychopath, but she did her best woman duties by keeping the groom alive. No easy feat with James Kirk. She'd actually watched him die before and that would not be happening again if she could help it. (Things were not looking good at the moment, however.)

Nyota truly hated being held hostage. She was surprised how many times it had happened. This was her fourth kidnapping this year. (She's starting to think that Spock wasn't taking back the necklace for the sole purpose of using it to track her down every time there was a kidnapping.) This was her first one without Jim being there. She and Sulu should've known Jim was getting ready to switch to a desk job and promote them given how often he'd been taking them on missions.

She knew that Jim, Spock, and/or everyone else who managed to not get captured would eventually try to mount a rescue (There were less than 90 people with her in captivity and she really did not want to think about how many of her crewmates were dead). Unfortunately, a rescue was what her captor was hoping for, the malicious little prick. So she decided to initiate an escape by taking advantage of Keener's annual Christmas cold.

Once they were out, she and Sulu tried to figure out what was going on in addition to finding anything that could help them get out of there. Of course, they accidentally stumbled into the big bad's plan, attack Yorktown (now filled with diplomatic representatives from 100 current or prospective Federation member states) with the artifact from the mission of two days ago.

Nyota still regretted not researching that thing before it ever landed on her ship. It was the entire reason why they were targeted. If she got out of here, she was going to murder with her bare hands whoever authorized that mission. Then, she's going to kill the person who didn't provide them with adequate background information. After that, she's going after the idiot who decided that Starbase Yorktown is the perfect place for a Christmas wedding.

Also, the emergency signal that she thought she sent to Yorktown was being manipulated so that the base would be defenseless when attacked. Not good at all.

Now, any good Starfleet officer would not want to see a city with several million people being destroyed by a total crazy person with a super weapon (especially one filled with enough diplomats to inadvertently start an intergalactic war). She had a particular aversion to genocide, especially after seeing it happen once. However, all she could think about was that Kristen was there and would have no idea what was going on. She didn't want her to die.

Her disastrous incarceration continued to decline as she watched Krall the crazy suck the life of her friends and then manipulate Ensign Syl into handing over the artifact by attempting to choke the life out of Sulu. As much as she did not want to tell Demora that her daddy died on a mission, she knew that Krall having this super weapon would be much worse. It completely disintegrated Ensign Syl within seconds. And he wanted to use that on Yorktown, a Starbase filled with lots of diplomats and millions of innocent souls.

Despite all of that, her mind kept thinking of the weapon destroying Kristen. The thought made her nauseous. She didn't want the last time she talked to Kristin to be their fight yesterday. She didn't want her girlfriend to die without knowing that yes, she was in love with her.

Shit! Why did this revelation have to come now? If she got out of this, she was going to tell Kristen that she loved her and wanted to be with her. Unfortunately, Nyota wasn't sure that was going to happen right now. Even if she did, Nyota was not sure if Kristen would be there. She had to hold on to the hope that Kristen would be, otherwise, she definitely wouldn't survive this.

Just as her thoughts reached their darkest point, Jim Kirk showed up riding a motorcycle. She was sure this was part of some brilliant plan to rescue her and the rest of the crew. At least, she hoped that was the case anyway.

To be continued.


	4. Following the Map That Leads to You

The title from this chapter comes from the Maroon V song Maps.

* * *

Chapter 4: Following the Map That Leads to You

* * *

 **About a Day and a Half Earlier**

Kristen really hated being woken up at 3 AM, especially when Jim Kirk was the one calling her. It never meant anything good. When she was his assistant, it usually meant they were being attacked by Klingons or he was developing a rash from a diplomatic gift. Now that she was several years removed from that role, she really thought that she was done with those types of calls. And yet at 3:22 AM, her communicator was flashing his name. She hit the 'I do not want to take this call' button twice before actually answering on the third try.

"You know if Davida wasn't in the other room still screaming because her daddy got called out for an emergency, I would be really pissed off at you for waking me up right now. I'm not your assistant anymore." Kristen replied, annoyed.

"Actually, you kind of are for wedding stuff and this is wedding stuff." Jim replied way too cheerily for this early. Why did she agreed to be his best woman?

"Wedding stuff that has to be handled at 3:24 in the morning?" She asked, still annoyed.

"I need you to call off the wedding." Okay, that woke her up quickly.

"Spock's father didn't actually convince him to take a Vulcan wife did he?" She asked worriedly. Nyota told her about Sarek trying to set Spock up with various Vulcan women while the pair was still dating. Incidents like that may explain why Nyota had commitment issues (although it was way too early to think about that situation logically).

"No." Jim answered emphatically. "At least I don't think so. We didn't actually talk about it because we had other Spock's belongings to go through or at least try to go through which went badly." That sort of stuff always does. She threw up a lot going through her uncle's stuff.

"How badly? Call off the wedding badly?" Kristen asked. "Was there something in other Spock's personal belongings? Did he warn you about how badly things went in his dimension? You know that just because something happened in one timeline doesn't mean it will happen in another?"

"Yes, I know that and no, it wasn't anything like that." Jim reassured.

"Then why am I calling off the diplomatic wedding of the year four days before it actually takes place?" There better be a good reason for her making all of those really uncomfortable calls.

"Look, Enterprise is being called in to perform a rescue mission inside the nearby nebula. However, something feels off." Jim started to explain. It was then that Kristen realized she's being called on an encrypted frequency. Not just an encrypted frequency, but the one they created to talk about her plans to rewrite the Kobayashi Maru without Starfleet figuring out what she was doing. This was bad.

"Like the whole thing is a trap?" Kristen asked.

"I think it could be. Although, I'm not sure what type of trap. That's why Spock and I are going along with the crew even though Paris wants us to stay behind to play diplomatic host."

"So you essentially want me to call off the wedding because you two are not going to be here? It makes absolute sense that you and your husband to be would put a rescue mission first. Good thing you're marrying each other because most people would be angry about their spouse putting their job first." Kristen's one non-Starfleet girlfriend during Nyota's denial phase broke up with her for that reason.

Okay, it was that and the fact that she was in love with someone else, but Kristen wasn't going to think about that now.

"We're not really calling off the wedding. I just don't want this place filled with diplomats when Enterprise isn't around to defend the base in case something happens." Kristen could hear the worry and Jim's voice.

"Because a snow globe in space filled with diplomats makes a great target for angry people?" Kristen remarked.

"Exactly. I think we will be back by Christmas and then we can have the wedding as planned just without 300 to 400 people that we don't know and can't stand." Jim argued.

"You know that Paris won't let me call off the diplomatic wedding of the century, not even if you two decide to break things off at the altar just because you're paranoid."

"I know. That's why we're going with the ship and I'm activating Theta Protocol." A.k.a. Jim's failsafe in case a senior member of Starfleet ordered Jim or his crew to do something that could be as dangerous such as sending the crew to the Klingon homeworld.

"What's my part in the protocol?" Kristen asked, knowing that he needed her special skills for this.

"In addition to the usual, since Paris won't let us call off the wedding, I need you to make sure that none of the diplomatic guests and their entourages actually make it to the base. You know everyone in Starfleet."

"Because my uncle screwed over just about everybody in Starfleet before he was murdered about six years ago because Operation Mind Wipe the Superpowered Narcissist went badly." Kristen still wasn't very popular because of that.

"You still know people."

"And I used up a lot of those favors to only get ethics training for the Kobayashi Maru incident." She had to use the good blackmail.

"There's still has to be something you can do?" He almost sounded like he was pleading and he probably was. If Theta Protocol was in place, then the situation was liable go bad very quickly.

"Luckily for you, 80% of the visiting dignitaries attending your wedding are coming aboard the Hamilton. The captain's daughter just happens to be your flower girl. I'll call her and see if we can come up with something to delay the ship for a day or two." Kristen offered.

"Thank you."

"I still think you're being paranoid." Kristen said, ending the call. This cannot be bad enough to activate Theta Protocol.

* * *

The Present

"Not paranoid." Kristen thought to herself as a disembodied voice in the background ordered everybody to proceed to their designated safety zone during the middle of the wedding's protocol walk-through.

Her pseudo-niece was strapped to her chest because Carol was on duty and she didn't expect for an emergency evacuation to happen while doing a rehearsal for a wedding that was definitely not going to happen now. She is really glad she convinced the captain of the Hamilton to have engine problems and therefore not arrive at Yorktown until the 24th. This would be a really bad time to be filled with diplomats.

She didn't have time to think about that because she was a Starfleet officer, even if she was still six months from graduating due to her Kobayashi Maru punishment. She needed to go to work. Kristen reluctantly turned over baby Davida to Ben, father of the flower girl, because she trusted her friend would keep the baby safe while she did what was necessary. (Plus, he was also Davida's pediatrician.) She helped with the evacuation and keeping the civilians as calm as possible under the circumstances. How could anyone stay calm when their home base was under attack by tiny little ships?

It probably didn't help that some asshole thought it would be a good time to start playing _Sabotage_ over the loudspeakers. Seriously, why would you start playing classical hip-hop at a time like this unless it was _Keep Your Head up_?

Okay, she quit thinking that person was an asshole when whatever was attacking this base started to blow up in a beautiful sea of orange. But couldn't they have chosen a nice peaceful orchestra piece or even some Klingon opera?

Five hours later, things were relatively calm by Starfleet standards anyway considering an antique ship that may or may not have been the legendary lost USS Franklin, managed to destroy the wedding venue when it crash landed in the Plaza. Kristen was also pretty sure that one of the grooms managed to take out the big bad in the center of town. At least, it sure looked that way from where she was evacuating people, but she probably would not know anything for sure until she hacked into the action report. Those probably wouldn't be ready for another 24 hours.

Now they were focusing on getting things back to normal. She found a large amount of irony in the fact that her job in all of this was canceling the wedding because Yorktown was currently too damaged and vulnerable to host hundreds of diplomats. The immediate danger was over, but there could be a second wave of forces and what's to say that the hip-hop destruction frequency would work a second time. It was too much of a risk.

Then there was also the fact that maybe this wasn't the best time for the Captain of the Enterprise, or even that Federation in general, to have a big party. Kristen overheard enough to know that the forces that attacked Yorktown managed to completely destroy Enterprise and then kidnapped the surviving crew. She could't wait to hear exactly how the survivors managed to make their way back to Yorktown in an antique ship in time to save the day (and Kristen was so happy that they had saved the day).

Hacking the files did not reveal who survived, only how many and that number was a grim 87. (Jim definitely made the right call in activating Theta protocol.) What if Nyota wasn't part of that 87 or her cousin in law? Carol would be devastated and Kristen would kind of be lost. She was angry at Nyota, but didn't want to lose her.

She wasn't able to do any more digging because that was when Jim found her at her terminal. His face was dark and he looked like he was about to fall over at any minute. That's okay because Kristen was in a similar state. But could he be like this for a reason other than the mass amount of casualties aboard Enterprise. What if one of those casualties was someone close to Jim like McCoy or Nyota or worse? What if Paris ordered her to cancel the wedding because one of the grooms didn't make it? That would completely destroy Jim?

"Spock is okay, right? That's not why I was asked to call everything off?" She asked worriedly.

"Spock is okay, at least now that he's actually resting and not playing big damn hero by trying to rescue your girlfriend from the big bad, despite being injured, which resulted in her saving him in the end." Okay, something happened that required Nyota to be rescued, but she was rescued, so there was nothing to worry about. Unless that rescue went badly, like apparently when she had to save Spock's ass.

"Obviously you've had a very exhausting 48 hours. What the hell happened?" Kristen asked, still worried.

"Your girlfriend's okay." Kristen, let go of a breath that she didn't even know she was holding at his words.

"She's probably going to have to spend time in mandatory post kidnapping counseling, but she's fine."

"I didn't ask about Nyota specifically, just what happened overall." Kristen responded.

"Let's be honest, that's the real question you're asking." She hates that Jim knows her so well.

"I have no girlfriend."

"If I wasn't exhausted I would be giggling at that. You are completely and utterly in love with Nyota and we both know it. Really, I don't have the energy to deal with your relationship bullshit right now." Jim's reply ended with a yawn.

"Neither do I. I kind of just want to take a nap."

"That's why your cousin told me to take you home when she ran into me a few minutes ago. She felt after everything that had happened today her baby girl needed a familiar face." That's when she noticed Jim was carrying Carol's backup diaper bag with the lactation kit. "And unfortunately Carol's going to be here for a while. The asshole's army of drones screwed up the defenses and as you know it's her job to get everything back online." Jim explained.

"And because keeping the base safe means keeping Davida safe, she is going to living off of coffee and energy drinks until she is sure we are safe as can be." And Kristen has baby duty. Wonderful.

"Exactly." She doesn't really fight when her computer is cut off and Jim started walking her to the door. It wasn't until she was in the elevator did Kristen realize there was someone Jim didn't mention.

"Hey, where's Leonard? He is okay, right?" Kristen asked, concerned. Throwing herself into her job would definitely be something Carol would do to deal with a possibly dead boyfriend. It's what Carol did after her father died.

"Bones is fine. Grumpy and pissed off at me because I sent him off in an alien ship with Spock to execute our plan to beat the bad guys, but that's his normal state. I think right now he's at the clinic working his way through the survivors." Jim explained as he led her out the door of HQ.

"Oh, thank god they're all okay. They are all okay?" She asked.

"That's a very loaded question. We watched our home of 5 ½ years be completely eviscerated by very tiny droid ships." Jim said sadly.

"Duly noted, but didn't you say something about your almost spouse being injured."

"Pipe through the stomach when he crash landed. He's okay. Things are not bad enough for him to be in Sickbay, but he's just not well enough for pomp and circumstance of Starfleet's original wedding plans. Also, a celebration seemed weird given the circumstances."

"Because only 87 members of the Enterprise crew survived?" Kristen asked.

"We're now up to 93. Some of the escape pods managed to land on the other side of the planet and were not taken into captivity. There's a team now searching the planet to make sure no one was left behind. The Mandela is en route to assist."

"I'm glad that they found more survivors." Kristen told him as they kept walking. She was going to go change and then see if it was okay for her to go up to the Sulu house to pick up Davida. Although, considering how the Starbase was laid out, Jim and Spock were probably in the same building.

"Even then it just doesn't seem right to have a big party of a wedding. Also, I've been told that the wedding site was trashed." Jim half joked, but it was obvious his heart wasn't in it.

"Yep. There are white chairs all over the plaza along with pieces of the decorative snow people."

"I'm glad everyone was out of there before we crashed. Since we no longer have a venue, I hope you called all the outside guests and told them that it wasn't happening. It's not like we can deal with a Starbase filled with diplomats right now."

"It's handled. The Hamilton had 'engine issues' and was arriving two days later than originally planned anyway. As soon as things are working again, they'll drop off all the dignitaries somewhere not here. The Captain is mad about not getting to see her daughter, but she was glad they weren't here when everything went down."

"Because the army of droids would have taken out the Hamilton like they did Enterprise before they even started on Yorktown." Jim said darkly.

"What happened? All I know is that the ship was destroyed." Kristen asked.

"The long-term consequences of not dealing with those who cannot handle change very well. When there's a small part of the population who cannot deal with progress, they become violent and that violence results in starships being torn apart for the sake of super weapons that can disintegrate that entire population of a Starbase in seconds, if it were to get into the ventilation system." Jim explained. "Also, our belief that the biggest ship always wins is total bullshit and we need to prepare for that."

"This is going to be a long convoluted classified story that I probably won't have the clearance for, right?" Kristen asked.

"Yes."

"So this is probably the wrong time to tell you that the only diplomat still here is your almost father-in-law and Kevin from the Teenaxi Delegation?" Only because Enterprise accidentally beamed Representative Kevin up during the emergency evacuation when negotiations went south and Paris decided to invite him to the wedding in an effort to convince him to give peace a third try.

"I know. I got a text a few minutes ago about that. Apparently, Spock's father just showed up to the apartment and is fussing over him." Jim sighed.

"How does a Vulcan parent fuss over you?" Kristen asked.

"Probably by suggesting you take a nice desk job on the colony as they state their gratefulness for you still being alive. Or at least that's what I assume is going on. The text messages were mostly about the fact that Sarek offered his house on the colony, if we want to do the makeup wedding on New Vulcan, since obviously we need to have it somewhere else."

"You do realize there are other places right here that you could get married? The flower arrangements are still intact because they had not been delivered to the venue yet." Kristen replied flippantly.

"I think the Christmas curse is back and if we get married on December 25, I'm sure we will be divorced or dead by our birthday." Jim said darkly.

"Yours or his?" Kristen asked as she placed her hand against the biometric reader for her building. She just wanted to take a nap after she called Ben to see if it was okay to get Davida. The poor little girl was probably asleep.

"Spock's because that's the only one we actually celebrate." Jim said as they walked into the elevator and press the number for Kristen's floor.

"I'm sure it helps that it's only two days after yours."

"And doesn't have an association with anything bad like my dad dying or seeing most of my crew killed." Jim said darkly as they got off the elevator and started walking to her apartment.

"Technically, your ship wasn't destroyed on Christmas." Kristen argued. "Just because a few bad things happened around the same time of the year does not mean a particular date is cursed. A lot of good things have happened this time a year."

"Like you dumping the Nyota look-alike last year. Although you caught her cheating on you first. So that's probably a draw." Jim quipped as Kristen unlocked her front door.

"Jim, I'm telling you there is no such thing as the Christmas curse." Kristen said just before noticing that Nyota was changing Davida on her couch. Okay, maybe Jim was onto something. She's too exhausted to deal with this now.

* * *

Jim's entire body hurt and not in the fun way. He hadn't been this physically and emotionally exhausted since the Vengeance incident. At least he walked away from this one without 'magic' blood and three weeks in the hospital. Of course, instead of getting to sleep for at least three days after a nice hot shower, he had to attend after action meetings with Paris and company. He would love to put it off, but he couldn't because the rescue teams needed as much information as possible to get through the nebula and look for any survivors. Thankfully, a few had already been found.

There would be more meetings tomorrow and the day after in an effort to figure out what went wrong and how the Beastie Boys ended up saving the day. There were also next of kin notifications that need to be sent out.

Jim knew he was going to have to write up a detailed report about the events of the last two days and how it could be prevented in the future. Jim wasn't sure how Starfleet would feel about him recommending more funding for officer mental health. He couldn't help but think this entire mess would not have happened if Edison had been sent to therapy after MACO was disbanded instead of being given an old ship and told to explore.

The things that had to be done today were completed and he was allowed to go home to his husband. Jim had no idea how long it will be until that designation was official. Of course before leaving, Paris let him know the good news that the Vice Admiral position at Yorktown was his if he wanted it. He didn't tell her no, even though he's leaning that way. Instead, Jim told her that he needed to discuss it further with Spock before he committed. Maybe that was as good as no.

Before everything happened, Jim and Spock had discussed this possibility and decided that Yorktown was somewhere where they wanted to be. Now, he wasn't so sure.

He was so caught up in his thoughts that he ran into Carol, literally, as she was leaving the lactation room.

"I'm glad to see you." Jim thought that was evident by the fact that she hugged him. "The powers that be are refusing to give out a casualty list. Instead, they keep telling me I need to get our defense systems back in place. How is Leonard and my science team?"

"Your boyfriend is cranky and probably helping survivors at the clinic right now even though he should be resting. I'm sure they told you, the Enterprise was a total loss. Thankfully, most of the science team was not on the ship in the first place when it was destroyed, but we did lose Dickerson and Lisa."

"They were both good officers." Carol said as her eyes started to water. "Enterprise being a total loss is the one piece of gossip that I do keep hearing along with the fact that they now want you _to_ be the Vice Admiral of this place since you save the day." Jim's a little annoyed that they're gossiping about his fallen ship. He's even more annoyed that they're talking about his possible promotion. They should be focusing on the lost.

"I'm not sure if I want to be the Vice Admiral of this place anymore."

"Why?" Carol asked.

"When I originally applied, I was frustrated with the monotony of star mapping and I thought, hey, this would be a great place to raise little baby Vulcans without suffering heatstroke or leaving Starfleet completely behind. Yorktown even had bonus points for Bones being here. But now…" Jim wasn't even sure how to articulate what he was thinking about the situation at present.

"You're not sure if you want to leave the exploratory life of Starfleet behind. Or maybe after such a close call, Yorktown has lost at least one star in its family-friendly rating. I know I'm applying for something on an actual planet after this." Jim was half tempted to snicker at that.

"That will make your life partner very happy. It's just that this whole experience made me realize that I am not ready to leave my crew behind. I mean, I will eventually. Or maybe they'll leave me to do bigger and better things, but…Do you regret coming here?" Jim asked.

"Considering I'm probably not sleeping until Christmas Day, yes, I'm regretting my life choices. The swarms really messed up our defense systems."

"I mean leaving the five year mission for diaper duty."

"I really didn't have a choice. Not all of us get to schedule our forays into parenthood, they just happen when they do sometimes." Carol said, pointing to the baby bag across her shoulder. "You know, just because your dad died before he reached your current age does not mean you have to rush into things. Also, just because two of your friends have kids does not mean you need to rush out and have them right now. Go at your own pace."

"You could have stayed on Enterprise until the end of the five year mission." Jim said ignoring her earlier statement.

"Because babies who are under one year of age are allowed, but considering that the ship is now wreckage on a previously uncharted planet, I think I made the right call." Jim nodded his head in agreement on that.

"Point, but you could have used embryo stasis and waited until after the end of the five-year mission to have Davida. Why didn't you take this option?"

"Probably in an effort to avoid being my parents. I'm glad I didn't take that option. I would have completely missed morning mommy daughter time which I wouldn't give up for anything at the moment." Carol answered with a smile.

"This parent-child time does seem nice." Jim smiled back.

"Do I wish Davida was not the result of a massive contraceptive failure? Yes. But I like where things are now. Look, what's right for me is not going to be what's right for you and Spock. You need to do what's best for you."

"You're not convinced I would be an awful dad?"

"I think you would be good at it, but don't let other people pressure you into things you're not ready for. Children are not a cure-all for fixing whatever is wrong and I say that as a 'My parents only got married because of the pregnancy' baby."

"Which is the reason why you're wearing the ruby engagement ring from last year as a promise ring." Jim pointed to the ring on her finger.

"Exactly."

"I still want to marry Spock. I just have no idea when that's going to happen considering Paris just informed me that she's having your cousin call everything off because the base is not safe enough to host 100+ dignitaries and the Franklin is now partially sitting on top of our venue." Naturally, they wrecked the venue for the wedding because the Christmas curse was in full effect.

"Definitely not safe. This is why I can't leave to pick up my daughter from the Sulus'. Although, if you go to check on how the canceling of your wedding is going, would you please convince my wayward cousin that she should leave for babysitting duty?"

"You want me to convince Kristen to stop working? The same cousin that stayed with me through a 30 hour Klingon induce crisis when she was my assistant? The same cousin who stayed with you through 35 hours of labor without any sleep whatsoever?" Jim asked incredulously.

Before Carol could answer, his communicator chimed with a text message from Spock. However, it's not Spock actually texting him, but Nyota on Spock's behalf.

Hot sexy Vulcan: This is Ny on Spock's communicator because mine is probably crushed somewhere. The in-laws are here. And Sarek is trying to set up a backup wedding on New Vulcan at his house. Help!

Hot sexy Vulcan: Spock is still too injured to deal with his dad and the cute five month old is only distracting the stepmom.

Captain yummy pants: I'll be there soon. I just got out of my meeting with Paris. How did you end up with Davida?

Hot sexy Vulcan: Carol called me and asked me to keep an eye on her daughter because she's too busy trying to make sure this place isn't susceptible to a second wave. We don't know if K left some of his 'friends' behind.

Captain yummy pants: Try to get the in-laws out of the house. Tell them we will do brunch or lunch when we're not about to pass out from sheer exhaustion.

"Could you please explain why I am asking Kristen to get your daughter when you've already asked Nyota to do the same?" Jim asked, looking up from the message that he's just sent to Nyota.

"Because I can't deal with a mopey Kristen on the couch like I have for the last two days. I didn't even tell her about the distress signal that we intercepted yesterday because she would have completely freaked out if she knew Nyota was in trouble." Carol explained.

"Why can't they just talk things out like normal people?" Jim asked and Carol just glared at him for a moment.

"Because they have the emotional maturity of two-year-olds, at least when it comes to each other. If Nyota and Kristen didn't interfere, you would still be in denial about your feelings for your first officer. You owe them both." And, considering there's actually a timeline where that happened, Jim was willing to agree.

"Fine. I will lead Kristen to Nyota, so they can talk like grown-ups. Near death experiences usually lead to honest communication." And if nothing else, the last three days definitely counted as a near death experience.

"And you will let your goddaughter sleepover or at least watch her for a couple of hours. I think maybe Len can get out by 2 AM to take over, even if I'm going to be stuck here until everything's back online. I'll call his supervisor and make it happen, if I have to."

"You really do think I can raise a small child?" Jim asked.

"Yes. I chose you to be Davida's godfather for a reason. Today's incident proved that even a nice family-friendly assignment can be dangerous and therefore godparents who you trust to actually take care of your children after you are gone are a must." Jim didn't even want to think about having to take up that part of the godfather mantle.

"I always assumed Bones talked you into that."

"He chose Spock and I chose you, which worked out really well since you're going to be married soon." So his friend really did like his future husband after all. That's good to know.

"I hope so anyway."

"Now, go find Kristen. I think she's in the crisis management center."

"Yes ma'am." He said before leaving with diaper bag filled with fresh milk in hand.

As predicted, he did find Kristen in the crisis center 30 seconds from collapsing on her workstation. It wasn't that hard to convince her it was time to leave.

She was so tired that she didn't even question why he was walking her home. Their apartments are in the same part of the Starbase, so it wasn't that big of a thing. Their argument about the Christmas curse seemed to be distraction enough. Thankfully, he no longer had to get her to his apartment because Nyota just texted him to let him know that the in-laws were gone and she was heading downstairs to Kristen's apartment for a fresh outfit for his goddaughter.

The sight of Davida being extra fussy as Nyota tried to change the five-month-old did got her attention. He was honestly surprised they didn't hear her screaming before opening the door. Apparently the Starfleet apartments on Yorktown had decent soundproofing.

"If you're trying to get her to sleep for the night, it's best to put her in one of her night night outfits." Kristen said as she walked over to the dresser that happen to be underneath her bed and pulled out something that can only be described as a baby nightgown with little duckies on it. Of course she had to pull a lot of other stuff out before she managed to find the nightgown in question. "I hate efficiencies. If I had more space, Davida would have her own baby area, not just one drawer that I have to put everything in."

"I know. You've told me multiple times that your apartment is overrun with baby stuff because Davida is here like every other night." Nyota said as she put that outfit on the little girl. "It's why I knew you would have a fresh outfit for her to change into after we had a little incident upstairs. The baby bag was out of fresh clothes."

"Because she managed to go through her first outfit for the day before the evacuation sirens even went off." Kristen quipped.

"See, she's all clean and happy now. And hopefully she won't throw up on anyone else." Nyota then proceeded to give Davida over to Kristen. Jim was personally wondering who she threw up on. Jim hoped it was his almost father-in-law.

"You don't need to explain why you're here. Your duffel bag is still here anyway, so this is your home away from…" Kristen stopped speaking most likely remembering there was not an Enterprise to go back to at the moment.

"Spock said I could stay upstairs if…" Nyota started to say as she motioned to her duffel bag.

"No, I'm not going to kick you out. Davida and I will go over to her house because I think there's probably breast milk in the fridge. After the last 24 hours, I think somebody could use the good stuff." And now Jim understood why even Carol was intervening. Those two made him and Spock seem well-adjusted.

"No. You guys are talking this out, like the adults you're both supposed to be." Jim screamed in frustration. "Look, we all came really, really close to getting killed by an anti-Federation psychopath because he decided he wanted to kill everybody because he couldn't function under new social norms."

"Or he was just 'suck the life out of people' crazy." Nyota supplied.

"Okay, that too. But regardless, don't you think that arguing over semantics is ridiculous at this point? It's obvious to everybody that you both love each other. As somebody who has actually died before, let me tell you that life is too short to miss out on something good like what you could have with each other."

"Love is not everything." Kristen mumbled under breath.

"It's a good place to start." Jim said as he grabbed Davida from Kristen.

"I've had about three hours of sleep in as many days and I'm pretty sure Nyota had less. I'm going to grab little Ms. Cranky's bassinet for some quality goddaughter-godfather time and you two are going to work this out."

"And formula. Don't let my baby starve upstairs." Kristen called out.

"Carol gave me a bag full of breast milk and the micro baby carrier. I think I have at least two days' worth of diapers in that sucker. We will be fine while you two do grown-up things." Jim said, leaving them behind. He was done with this.

"How do you feel about a bottle while we wait for them to talk things out?" Jim asked Davida as they waited for the elevator. She just cooed at him.

"Good choice, little girl." It was a testament to the type of day it was that they both fell asleep after about half a bottle.

* * *

Nyota really just wanted to sleep right now, but instead she was babysitting two hyperactive children. Okay one hyper child and one Vulcan who sometimes acted more like a child, then one would ever believe a Vulcan would act like.

Davida is easy to take care of. All the little girl needs is a bottle and a cuddle. Spock, on the other hand, required her to force him to rest in bed and keeping him calm.

Normally, it's easy to keep this Vulcan calm unless Sarek showed up and of course, Sarek decided to not even wait 24 hours after his sons latest near death experience to show up. After knowing Spock for nearly 9 years, she was very aware of how easily the elder Vulcan could stress Spock out.

Today it only took the older Vulcan trying to push for the makeup wedding to happen on New Vulcan. That had Nyota calling for reinforcements on Spock's communicator and figuring out how to politely get Sarek and his wife out of there. Luckily, Davida simplified everything by throwing up all over Alexis. (Now, they're definitely going to have to go down to Kristen's apartment for an outfit change).

Nyota didn't feel bad about that at all. It was for the best frankly. Alexis was going to have to get used to babies throwing up on her in three months' time anyway. It was very important to learn not to rock a baby who was eating before you disrupted her late-night dinner. Although considering that David is now smiling, Nyota had an odd feeling that the little girl did it on purpose.

"Your dad and stepmom are gone now. Although, I think they're going to come back in the morning." Because she invited them to do brunch like Jim suggested, but she's not telling Spock that.

"You know you wouldn't be in this situation, if you just told your dad that you don't want to go off to the Vulcan colony to raise cute little Vulcan babies with the first female Vulcan available."

Regardless that her relationship with Spock fell apart because he was head over heels in love with Jim, at a certain point it gets really annoying that your boyfriend's father keeps trying to set him up with other women. What was even more grating was the fact that it's happening when she's pretty sure Spock is a Kinsey four or even five to her Kinsey two.

"Sarek is well aware of my affections for James and realizes that convincing me to marry someone else is futile, especially if that other individual is a female of any species." Spock deadpanned.

"Well that's a vast improvement from when we were dating and he actively tried to set you up with other women." She quipped.

"You were aware that the emails he was sending me with possible Vulcan mates?" Spock asked.

"I am the Chief Communications Officer. What do you think?" Nyota questioned in response.

"It is obvious that you are aware of such communications. I am surprised you did not discuss this with me previously."

"I wasn't really mad about it because I already knew that you were in love with Jim. It was pretty obvious after you tried to rip apart somebody with your bare hands. I was just waiting for you to figure that out, but eventually I intervened more directly." Assisting Kristen play matchmaker is where all of this began. Nyota, really needed to talk to Kristen. She missed her so much.

"I am surprised you did not delete the messages before I saw them. Although, if you have such privileges, why did James need to delete the explicit communications between you and Kristen?"

"Oh God." Nyota hid her face from him with the aid of Davida. "Nobody wants their ex-boyfriend to know about explicit messages that they send their current girlfriend."

"Are you aware that you referred to Kristen as your girlfriend, where just four days previously you denied the nature of your relationship?" Nyota glared at Spock. They knew each other way too well.

"I had my own warp core moment about five seconds before we discovered if the attempted sabotage by _Sabotage_ would really work. Actually, I think it happened when I saw the super weapon disintegrate Ensign Syl in front of me. It made me realize that I do love Kristen. Almost losing everything made me realize a nine year age difference does not really matter that much in the grand scheme of things." Nyota confessed.

"I hope that unlike myself, you will act on those revelations without nearly 2 years passing by in the meantime." She already knew that Spock realized he was in love with Jim the day they nearly lost him almost 6 years ago, even if this is the first time Spock told her directly.

"No exact measurements?"

"I am still recovering from severe trauma and massive blood loss." Spock remarked. For him, that was a joke.

"Which means I should probably let you sleep." And get Davida a fresh outfit.

"You are going downstairs to wait for Kristen?" Spock asked.

"Yes," Nyota acknowledged. "I think we know each way too well."

"That is impossible."

"Not for us. Since I have known you for so long, let me say this - you're not being a bad Vulcan by marrying Jim or staying in Starfleet instead of going to the colony and making as many little Vulcans as possible. You have to do what's best for you. Never let anyone make you feel bad for being yourself." Nyota advised as she kissed Spock on the forehead before leaving.

"You should take your own advice. There is nothing wrong with you engaging in a romantic relationship with somebody nine years your junior."

' _Especially because your soon to be brother-in-law married an actual teenager.'_ Nyota thought to herself, but didn't say that out loud.

"I'm going to try to fix things. Eventually." She told Spock before leaving.

As soon as Nyota was out at the apartment, she sent Jim a text message letting him know that Spock was now home alone and she was going to Kristen's apartment for baby supplies. She didn't think Kristen would actually be there because she wouldn't have Davida if Kristen wasn't busy calling off the diplomatic wedding of the year at command central. At least that's what Carol told her earlier when she asked Nyota to watch Davida until one of them could get out of work.

She should've known Kristen would be the one to get out first.

"This is payback for the great Christmas set up of 2260." Kristen said, just as Jim left with the baby. "This was obviously a set up."

"More like an ambush, but I've been informed that Jim pretty much chose you as his best man for matchmaking purposes." Leonard told her that earlier when he was checking her over after everything.

"Although, I don't think you can be set up with somebody that you've been dating off and on for four years." Kristen quipped.

"Very often off, since you were dating someone else last year at this time." Nyota pointed out.

"No, I'm pretty sure I had already caught her screwing someone else, by this point. I don't even remember her name anymore because I was completely head over feet in love with you and have been for a while. We can't pretend to be friends because we were never friends."

"Are you going to start quoting Buffy right now?" Nyota asked.

"I think were both too tired for that. Almost getting killed by the bad guy is exhausting." Kristen actually yawned.

"But it gave me a lot of clarity, I love you." Nyota confessed.

"What?"

"You can have a lot of revelations when you're about to die or when you see one of your crew members completely disintegrated by an alien super weapon. It makes you realize what's important and you're what's important to me." Nyota confessed.

"Alien super weapon? What exactly happened? I couldn't hack into the after action report, mostly because it wasn't completely written yet." Kristen told her voice full of concern.

"The short version is the ship was attacked because we were unknowingly carrying half of a super weapon and were therefore lured into a trap so our attackers could get said weapon. The ship was destroyed. I was kidnapped by the guy who destroyed our ship and then during his villain speech about destroying everything because he doesn't like change I realized I was more worried about him destroying you then anything else." Nyota wiped at the tear that was running down her cheek. "I'm sorry that I made such a big thing about the age difference. I just want you to have the life of a normal cadet that I didn't really consider…" Her babbling was disrupted by Kristen grabbing her hand.

"Four years ago when I was too young to drink, it was the right thing not to get involved. In hindsight, I realize you made the right call back then. But I'm 21 now and old enough to decide what I want and who I want to be with and that's you. I'm pretty sure I'm older than Jim's new sister-in-law." Kristen joked.

"The age thing wasn't the only reason. My last serious relationship ended because he fell in love with someone else. I didn't want to tie you down while you were trying to figure things out."

"Your last boyfriend just happened to be gay or probably just Jim Kirk sexual." Kristen added.

"There's also that. But in my relationship with Spock, I had to deal with everybody whispering behind my back and assuming that I was only with him for good grades or a better position. I didn't want you to go through that either."

"I'm Alexander Marcus' niece. I have to deal with people gossiping behind my back, regardless of who I'm sleeping with." Kristen said poignantly.

"I realize that now. Maybe if you live through enough near-death experiences, you start to realize that what other people think doesn't matter. What matters is right here."

That's when Nyota leaned over to kiss her and Kristen reciprocated, at least until Nyota tried to pull her to the bed.

"As much as I want to find out if 'I am so happy you're not dead' sex is as awesome as Jim says it is, when did you last sleep?"

"Two maybe three days ago. I think the days were different where we were and it's not like there were clocks where we were being held hostage." Nyota acknowledged.

"Then as much as it pains me to say this, go change into something flannel and very unflattering and let's just go to sleep."

"You're turning down sex?" Nyota asked incredulously.

"Yes, because I'm pretty sure that you would collapse halfway through and orgasms don't happen when you're exhausted anyway. Besides, I want us to have a real relationship and that means putting you to bed after getting kidnapped by the bad guy. There is always the morning." Kristen kissed her forehead before grabbing something flannel and unflattering from Nyota's bag for her to sleep in.

"I want that with you too," Nyota said sleepily acquiescing to Kristen's request. It was for the best because she was asleep less than 10 minutes later with Kristen wrapped around her.

To be concluded.


	5. Salvation Through the War

Thank you to everybody who has read or reviewed so far. We are now at the end of our story. Will Jim and Spock actually make it to the altar without anything else going wrong? We shall see.

The title from this chapter comes from a line of the Backstreet Boys song In a World like This.

* * *

 **Chapter 5: Salvation Through the War**

* * *

Spock is not surprised to find James sleeping on the couch. Even by Vulcan standards, Jim would be considered sleep deprived considering his minimal sleep over the last 3.2 days. He is surprised to find Davida Marcus McCoy sleeping in his arms.

James is so exhausted that Spock is able to extricate the five-month-old without him stirring. Ms. Marcus-McCoy is a different matter altogether.

Spock was thankful for the fact that he could use his touch telepathy to pick up on the fact that Ms. Marcus McCoy would like a diaper change and to be cuddled. He only needed to watch a demonstration video twice before he was able to successfully change the diaper.

"Well you can do diapers. I'm impressed. You even knew to put the old diaper in the diaper genie self-washing pouch instead of throwing it away like I did my first time when Peter was a baby." Jim said from behind him.

"I assumed you were still sleeping." Apparently, he had not quieted the infant quickly enough.

"I've been a starship Captain too long to sleep through any sharp blaring sound or a baby being removed from my arms." James explained.

"I doubt we will need to contend with an emergency alert here."

"I hope not, anyway. One near-death experience this week is enough."

"I am inclined to agree." Spock responded.

"I promise I'll go back to sleep completely curled around you as soon as we can get Davida down again."

"Should we leave the bassinet here or take it into our bedroom?" Spock asked.

"Let's keep it in the living room. I'm pretty sure between your hearing and my light sleeping habits we will be able to hear her." Of course at that moment Ms. Marcus-McCoy started to scream. "We will definitely be able to hear that. Maybe milk will help. Bring her into the kitchen and I'll heat up a bottle."

"Ms. Marcus McCoy is not particularly in need of nourishment although she would not be averse to more milk. The 'good stuff' because it reminds her of her mother that she misses terribly. I assume the good stuff is breast milk." Spock stated.

"You're good at this. Although it probably helps that you can read minds." Jim smiled, grabbing one of the bottles out of the refrigeration unit. One of the small ones because apparently Davida just wanted a light snack because it smelled like mommy.

"I will be able to do something similar with our own children."

"I wanted to talk to you about that eventually, but after some actual sleep. But this is as good a time as any. I was offered the vice admiral position at Yorktown." Jim told his fiancée.

"Because your heroic actions earlier today?" Spock asked

"Technically that was yesterday. You're slipping." Jim teased as he started to warm up the bottle in warm water.

"I'm still recovering. You are considering not accepting the position?"

"Recent events have shown me that despite the vast quantities of star mapping, the life of a starship Captain is never boring. I definitely never thought we would solve the mystery of the long-lost Franklin." 'Or encountered the ship's mentally unstable former captain.' Spock added mentally.

"Recent events have made you rediscover what you like about your current job?" Spock asked for clarification.

"Yes. I love exploring new worlds and bringing new cultures into the Federation. I love learning about different people. I love protecting people, especially those I care about."

"I feel similarly, unless kidnappings are involved." Spock added.

"I hate the more bureaucratic parts of my duties and I realize that if I take a desk job or at least the Starfleet equivalent of a desk job that would be mostly what I would be doing. I think that would drive me crazy."

"I do not think you would be well-suited for a desk job." Spock said, honestly.

"But I kind of want this too." Jim said, pointing to their goddaughter, resting against Spock.

"Heating up a bottle at 3:28 AM for your goddaughter?" Spock asked.

"Looking at you being all sexy cuddling our child as you try to get her to fall asleep again. Although it would be extra great if you were shirtless right now." Jim smirked at him.

"I believe the section of skin recently regenerated would be irritated by the cold air." Spock remarked.

"I'm pretty sure that won't be an issue in a few days." James joked.

"I am equally conflicted." Spock acknowledged. "I enjoy what we're doing with Starfleet. But as you are well aware, I also feel a need to help my people more directly than I have in the past."

"You also have a need to be a good son to a guy who whose standards are ridiculous and wants grandbabies right away even if he is diving straight back into fatherhood. You know if he wants grandkids so much you could always just give a sample to the endangered species DNA bank program." Spock was positive James was serious, despite the slightly flippant tone.

"A viable alternative, if I believed that anybody would want a multi-species child other than us." Spock honestly believed no one would considering the fact that Spock had to obtain the legal assistance of his stepmother to gain use of the genetic materials bank for himself.

"There has to be someone else out there in the universe that would see the added benefits of having a little human DNA in their child for the sake of genetic diversity." Jim said, taking the bottle out of the warm water and testing it on his wrist to see if it was the appropriate temperature for Davida. Finding it still too cool, it went back into the warm water.

"Even if you are right and the utilization of the bank would allow me to contribute genetically to the continued existence of my species, it does not address the issue of my desire to raise a family with you." James responded by kissing him.

"This is why I love you." Jim said pulling away. "So obviously we are at the same impasse and we are not sure which road we want to take. Well, at least were on the same page. I kind of would love for a sign to point us in the right direction."

"I went through Ambassador Spock's things while you were out." Spock told his fiancée.

"I'm pretty sure I told you that we would go through it together - especially considering you're supposed to be on bed rest. See, this is why neither one of us can do a normal desk job. We hate sitting still."

"I understand your concerns, but I hoped that he left me something that would give me clarity." Spock explained.

"Do you have that now?" Jim asked.

"The fact that there is a picture of the entire crew together at least 20 years in the future, tells me that my counterpart stayed with Starfleet for a very long time." The fact that picture was on his person when he passed through to this time signifies how important these people were to his counterpart.

"Circumstances were different." We were never lovers, at least never publicly.

"I was not a member of an endangered species." Spock said out loud because he wasn't sure how much James knew about that.

"You and I never hooked up - at least not in an 'until death do us part' sort of way, complete with legal documentation." He did not realize James was aware of this. "Also, from what I managed to get the old guy to spill with the aid of chocolate and painkillers, our Enterprise children were born years later, under different circumstances and sometimes with different parents. Sometimes change can be good. You know, for a guy who said he didn't want to interfere, he had a big mouth sometimes."

"Ambassador Spock left us a letter."

"Of course he did." James said as he tested the bottle a second time. Apparently was at the correct temperature, this time.

"And a wedding present." Spock told him.

"I'm glad somebody shopped early." The 'because he did not survive until the wedding' was left unsaid.

"Indeed."

"What did the letter say?" James asked.

"I did not read it yet. I felt it was more prudent for us to read it together as it was addressed to both of us." Because I needed your presence to be able to open the letter.

"Give me Davida." James reached out his arms for the little girl. "I'll get a little milk into her while you read the letter. Your voice always makes me nice and sleepy."

"Last week you said my voice always made you desire carnal activities." Spock said as he handed over the baby.

"And those activities make me sleepy. Totally true."

"I do not think..." James placed two fingers to his lips.

"Just read." And so, Spock did as instructed once James was sitting comfortably in the chair next to the bassinet.

 _Dear James and Spock:_

 _I am pleased to hear of your engagement. For all the negative changes in this timeline, this one has brought balance to it. Love is a wonderful thing and should be cherished. I am pleased that you discovered that significantly earlier than I did._

 _Unfortunately, I do not believe I will be able to attend your wedding. Not because seeing you join together would be painful, but because my time in this plane of existence is limited. We all die eventually, some of us more often than others._

 _Do not be saddened by the end of my journey, but celebrate the journey itself. I have lived through lifetimes, finding pleasure and sorrow in each. I must acknowledge that death itself is less daunting the second time. Then again, I have experienced more loss in the intervening years._

 _Let life be your own journey. Take the path you choose not the path that others expect you to choose. Your life is your own. Make your own path even if you must cut the brush down yourself to create it._

 _To my younger self, do not concern yourself with pleasing our father, but with pleasing yourself. Do not become obsessed with being the perfect Vulcan. There is no such thing. Become the perfect you. Although, keep in mind that what was perfect for me is not necessarily perfect for you._

 _Do not feel compelled to return to the colony because you believe you must take my place now that I am no longer among the living. There are other ways you can help our people without physically being there. Find your own path._

 _I do have a wedding present for both of you. I have brought very few things with me from my own timeline. I never expected it to be a one-way trip to a different timeline. One is a picture of my crew, the last one of us all together. The other is a pocket watch that once belonged to my Jim's grandfather. It was left to me after._

 _The watch seems a most appropriate wedding present. It should rest with a Kirk anyway._

 _I wish you happiness, joy, and hope on your journey together - despite how illogical wishes are. May you find your own path and walk along it together for many decades to come._

 _PS: If you wish to still explore the galaxy and raise a family simultaneously, might I suggest the diplomatic corps._

"Sneaky, meddling old bastard." Spock heard James mumble under his breath.

"You are displeased."

"No. The diplomatic corps is actually a good idea. I'm surprised I didn't think of it. See the universe and make the Federation a better place without getting shot at. Things are less likely to go horribly wrong, after first contact. It's something to look at."

"Yet you are looking at the watch in the box dubiously."

"Because that's a watch that I have not seen since I was a little kid. Frank, being the bastard that he was, sold Grandpa Kirk's pocket watch instead of giving it to me like he was supposed to. That's the reason why dad's convertible ended up in the Iowa Gorge before Frank could sell it."

"Now you have it, you will be able to give it to our children someday." Spock placed the watch in his hand.

"Are you okay with that being farther down the road? Because as much as I miss Bones and love spending quality time with this little munchkin," James nuzzled Davida's hair with his nose, "I don't think I am ready to be vice admiral of Starbase Snow Globe. Actually, I don't think I want to be an Admiral at all anymore."

"I understand. I too believe we have goals that need to be accomplished before we take a more domestic path." Spock intertwines his fingers through James'.

"As long as I am with you, I don't care how long it takes. Whatever we do, wherever we go, we do it together."

"Even if it's to the New Vulcan colony 5 to 10 years in the future?" Spock asked.

"Yes. Although, please remember, I sunburn easily and one of these days I am going to punch your dad. I don't know when, but it will happen." Spock knew that his fiancée was entirely serious in this regard.

"I have no desire to move back to the colony long term." Spock acknowledged being entirely honest.

"But we could always use some of our vacation time to go and build houses on the colony." Jim offered.

"At present, most structures are completed. However, they do need experienced programmers and coders to rebuild the Vulcan cultural database as well as to locate relevant data that may have been stored on off planet servers."

"Which is something we can do from…" James stopped speaking as a frown appeared on his face. "God, I almost said Enterprise. We don't actually have a ship anymore." What James was really saying was they didn't have a home anymore, even their current accommodations were just temporary.

"Considering they are offering you a promotion, it is logical to conclude that you will have a ship again." Spock stated trying to reassure his lover.

"Or they're giving me a desk job because they don't trust me with the lives of 800 people. At last count including us, only 93 people survived. I don't like those numbers."

"According to the latest email update from the recovery team, nine crew members were retrieved from the other side of the planet, bringing the survivor rate to 102."

"Still not good numbers." James lamented as he gently rocked Davida. Apparently the young child only wanted a small amount of milk.

"Furthermore, because you activated the Theta protocol only essential personnel were aboard Enterprise. There were only 300 crew members on the ship when it was attacked and no minors." Enterprise did have four minors on board, ranging from age 13 to 17.

"And now I'm okay with the regulations being readjusted to teenagers and young infants onboard starships."

"You will receive a new commission and I will be at your side." Spock affirmed.

"This is totally why I fell in love with you. You always believe me when I'm not even sure if I believe in myself. I want to marry you, which will be happening as soon as we can reschedule it. It will probably not be anytime soon because it's going to be a busy couple of days." Spock was certain that James was already mentally calculating how long drafting the many letters to send to the families of fallen crew members would take.

"I am not averse to that plan. I still want legal affirmation of our relationship." Spock placed a kiss on James' check.

"Dammit! I just realized we have to find another wedding location since our current site has the Franklin sitting on top of it. Although, in good news, we won't have to deal with dozens of diplomats because the base is not secure enough to host them. So you know, silver lining." James stated as he placed a now sleeping Davida in her bassinet.

"Hopefully, because of that Starfleet will not be involved in planning our second wedding. I am not opposed to taking point this time." Spock said, leading James to their own bedroom a few moments later after they were certain Davida would not start crying again.

"Good. I think you're more likely to be able to tell them go to hell when they try to get involved again without them realizing you're doing it. I rather not deal with a Starfleet diplomatic wedding again. Also, as wonderful as your father's offer was, I also say no to an outdoor wedding in the hot desert. No desert weddings for us anywhere."

"What did you want?" Spock asked placing James on the bed.

"Well, my dream wedding is no longer in the cards because our bridge is now in pieces on Altamid." Jim said sadly from the bed.

"You wanted to get married on the ship?" Spock asked, laying beside James.

"It's where we spent most of our time together. Or we did, but it's gone now." Despite the darkness of their temporary bedroom, Spock could see the moisture in James' eyes.

"Really, I don't care as long as the only ambassador in attendance is your father and even that's optional."

"The amount of ambassadors present?"

"Your father." James said with a yawn.

"Noted." Spock said as he wrapped himself around, James. Thankfully, his fiancée was asleep within minutes. That's when Spock formulated a plan to give James the perfect wedding sooner rather than later.

* * *

December 24, 2264

"Why are we going out to eat on Christmas Eve?" Jim asked as they walked through the restaurant district of Yorktown. It had been a crazy couple of days and they were probably only getting a reprieve because the Federation still recognized Christmas as a holiday and everything usually ended early the day before. Jim was looking forward to spending time with his friends or at least not being cooped up in a Starfleet office for hours on end.

However, Jim would've liked to do it at one of their apartments and not at a restaurant. "I know we never did it right in the Kirk household, but Christmas is supposed to be a homemade apple pie type of holiday when you can pull it off."

"Because I've been repairing the security system on Yorktown for the last three days and I don't have the energy to do anything beyond undoing my nursing bra for Davida." Carol quipped, and Jim is pretty sure Davida giggled in her arms.

She was still dressed as a baby elf from their earlier trip to have her picture taken with the Starbase Santa and giant stuffed polar bear. Yes, Jim had pictures of Spock holding Davida in front of said stuffed polar bear. It was adorable.

"They didn't need to know that. I could've cooked." Bones told his girlfriend.

"Between shifts? You've been living at the hospital for the last two days." In the last two days, 6 more people have been found on Altamid. As they were not in the best shape, the doctor had been kept very busy.

"Thankfully, I get the next 36 hours off. Maybe I'll do Grandma McCoy's pumpkin bread pudding for a holiday brunch tomorrow. I'm so glad Davida is too young to wake up at the crack of dawn for presents." Bones suggested. Jim will not find out because he's planning to spend quality time wrapped around his fiancée.

"We could have cooked. The apartment that they moved us to is pretty big. I think we could've pulled off a dinner party for 12."

"14. My father and stepmother are still here." Spock corrected.

Jim didn't get why the ambassador was still on planet. Since the wedding was canceled, he was sure they would be leaving soon. Actually, he was surprised the ambassador didn't leave after lunch a day and a half ago when Spock told his dad that he wasn't moving back to the colony and grandkids would not be happening for at least six more years. Sarek seemed to take it slightly better than when Spock turned down a sabbatical to help reestablish the Vulcan Science Academy two years ago. Father and son didn't speak for six months after that incident.

Jim wondered if things were going better this time because Jim asked Sarek about what qualities made a good Ambassador and expressed interest in joining the Federation diplomatic corps at some later date. Jim was seriously considering a second act career change. Despite what happened on Teenax he is usually pretty good with diplomats (as long as they weren't at his wedding) and negotiations.

"When would you have had the time to cook?" Carol asked returning him to the present. "How much time have you been spending with Paris?"

"Not a lot. We've mostly been involved in teleconferences with Starfleet San Francisco about what happens now." Jim explained.

The two hour long debate on whether they should publicly announce what happened to the Franklin and therefore rewrite the Starfleet history books was the highlight of the last two days. It was decided that the world will know what happened to the Franklin, but the part about the Captain siphoning off the life force those he captured to stay alive for a century, destroying the Enterprise for a bio weapon, and then trying to employ said bio weapon on Starbase Yorktown would be kept very classified. Typical Starfleet, but it's probably best that cadets not be introduced to the concept of their captain turning against them and the Federation until at least the third year.

"I heard that the ship being constructed here is now going to be the Enterprise 2.0." Bones said as they kept walking. There was talk about that as well at one of his meetings today, but Paris told him an official decision would not be made until the 26th.

"That still just a rumor at this stage." Jim responded as they kept walking. "Even then we are all going to end up with interim assignments for six months to a year."

"Well, we're going to see the new ship in a few minutes regardless." Leonard explained. "The shipyard bistro has one of the best Christmas Eve spreads on Yorktown and thanks to saving the entire base, we were able to get a table for 14 plus a high chair for Davida."

"Wait, shouldn't it be 15?" Jim asked. "Scotty said he was bringing Jaylah." For the sole purpose of Jim letting her know that he got her a spot at Starfleet Academy. He was going to have to explain to the Starfleet Academy computer engineering department chair every single vulnerability in the Kobayashi Maru program, but it was worth it.

"It is still 14." Bones answered. "Chekov is not coming. He said something about calling his parents. The news about what happened has just broke planet side. They were concerned. You know the media only ever gets the story half right." And if Jim was doing the math correctly in his head, it was already Christmas there. This is going to be an awful Christmas for the 192 families that lost people aboard Enterprise. It would've been so much worse if the ship was fully staffed when attacked.

Jim is not even surprised Chekov is not going to be there. He signed off on transfer papers for a position on the Hamilton an hour and a half ago before being pulled out for a very Enterprise Christmas dinner (without Enterprise) and a Santa Claus run. It's probably better this way. Jim really hopes that Pavel finds whatever he's looking for as a lieutenant aboard the Hamilton.

At that moment Demora runs past the group with an exhausted Ben chasing behind her.

"Is Demora wearing her flower girl dress?" Jim asked vaguely remembering picking that thing out a couple of months ago during the chaos of wedding planning for his poor wedding that wasn't happening.

"Have you ever tried to dress a five-year-old? They have minds of their own. And since the dress was ready, she decided it was the perfect thing to wear." Sulu explained when he caught up to the rest of the group.

Jim would have totally believed that if he didn't see Nyota and Kristen making out in their bridesmaid dresses in front of the restaurant. Also said restaurant instead of being decked out in Christmas colors was decorated in the colors originally intended for the wedding. The normally busy restaurant was empty except for the wait staff and it looked like it was being prepared for a party of 100+.

"Okay what's going on?" Jim asked.

"Surprise! It's a wedding for 12 and a reception for 120." Nyota replied sheepishly as Spock father and stepmother arrived.

"I'm sorry we are late. Why do they call it morning sickness when it hits at seven at night?" Alexis said wearing her maternity dress that he knew Kristen picked out days ago before everything went to hell. Now he understands why Sarek did not leave yet.

"Obviously, the term was coined by someone who had never been pregnant." Carol stated from the sidelines. "It's fine. We just got here and were still waiting for our officiant."

"And they're still trying to explain to me what's going on."

"You asked me to re-plan our wedding and I have re-planned the wedding, albeit with significantly less people in attendance." Spock explained.

"12 is definitely less than whatever amount we had before." And all of them were people, Jim actually liked or at least respected. Ben was cool and Sarek wasn't glaring at him anymore. Bonus points for that. Again, it probably helped that Jim was thinking about a diplomatic career post Starfleet. "I wasn't expecting the redo wedding to happen the day before the wedding was originally planned."

"That's because it's much easier to plan a wedding for 11 plus an infant, especially because most of the things for the first wedding were not destroyed by the Franklin." Kristen explained. "The flower arrangements were all ready to go anyway. We had to do a wedding just so they would not die in vain." Kristen added pointedly."So we are getting married here at this restaurant?" Jim asked.

"No, but the reception will be taking place here. Although I am not able to marry you on the bridge of our former ship, we can get married underneath our future ship." Spock said, pointing to the ship being constructed outside of their window.

"We don't know for sure if the ship in front of us will be the new Enterprise." It is highly possible that Starfleet would want to replace their flagship. There's been several Enterprises, what's one more, but there's no guarantee that Jim will be her Captain.

"Technically, she will be Enterprise A." Jim heard Commodore Paris say as she approached the group. "And you will be her Captain once construction is completed."

"I thought they weren't deciding that until after Christmas." Jim said slightly astonished.

"Consider this a wedding present or Christmas gift if you will." Really Jim shouldn't be surprised considering he did sign his now former navigator's transfer papers earlier. If Enterprise really was gone for good, there would be no need for him to sign the papers. Central Command would have taking care of all the reassignments and none would have required Jim's permission.

"Thank you." Jim said, shaking the hand of the Commodore.

"Now I believe I have a wedding to perform." That makes sense, considering Paris was originally to officiate their giant diplomatic wedding. Jim is personally happy that it is now a much smaller affair.

"We have to get the grooms dressed first." Kristin said pulling out a garment bag from who knows where. Jim is pretty sure Spock leaned heavily on Kristen to put this together so fast, but he wasn't complaining.

Considering how many things had gone wrong with this wedding up until this point (deadly bridal shower gifts, losing the ship for the sake of a killer bio weapon, his navigator kissing him in a Hail Mary attempt to get Jim to call off the wedding, and Spock almost getting killed by shrapnel), the ceremony itself actually went very well. His suit fit perfectly and the tie was not missing (that happened at his mom's wedding to asshole number two). Spock looked extra hot in his suit, and ambassador Sarek did not make snide comments about his son getting married in human attire.

Also, Sarek did not object, during that part of the ceremony. Jim was half convinced that Sarek was going to bring his preferred Vulcan female bride to the ceremony. Instead, he proudly gave Spock away to him. He even told him how proud Amanda would have been to witness this moment.

Okay, Jim may have cried a little bit when Bones stood in for Jim's missing family. The man really was Jim's good brother. Jim wondered what Winona would think of Spock. He hoped that his mom would be happy that he found someone who truly loved him.

Demora made a beautiful little flower girl and thankfully she did not lose the ring. That happened at Sam's wedding to Arlene, which should have signified that marriage was going to crumble, eventually.

She did throw her flowers at her 'Auntie Nyota' because somebody (Uncle Chekov) told the five year old that if she did that, then Nyota would be the next to be married. Of course she did this during the actual ceremony. Honestly, Jim is just glad that she didn't toss the flowers at Carol. That would've been awful.

Jim was happy to be getting married with just his actual friends there. He was happy that this private moment between him and Spock would be shared with people they really care about. Seriously, who wants to chat up diplomats at their wedding?

Of his core friends, only Scotty was missing because he decided to volunteer to watch the ceremony from the viewing window so he could ensure the reception was ready. (Chekov wasn't there either, but only a masochist would go to the wedding of their crush and his now former Navigator was not a masochist).

Spock's wedding vows were also beautiful. It didn't surprise Jim at all that the Vulcan elected to write his own vows.

"I pledge to cherish you always whether it be in times of strife and in times of contentment." Spock said as he placed Jim's ring on his finger. He is really glad they remember to pack those in their luggage because Jim would be really sad if this ring would forever be buried in the wreckage of his fallen ship.

"I pledge to share my strength, knowledge, and love with you. I pledge to be there for you in good times and bad. I pledge that there will be no secrets between us. My mind and heart are open to you always. You are my balance. You are my center. You are my heart. I pledge to be part of you from now until death and even beyond."

Maybe it could've been construction dust, but Jim is almost positive that Spock's eyes were watery. Jim's sure were. Thankfully, Kristen did her best woman duties and handed him a pack of tissues. Bless her.

"Unfortunately, I didn't know this wedding was still happening until about 42 minutes ago and my original wedding vows are located on a PADD that's probably somewhere on Altamid. So I'm just going to have to wing this." Jim said, which caused Kristen to giggle.

"I love you." Jim said as he began to place a chain containing Spock's ring around his neck. Long ago, they decided that Spock would not be wearing a ring on his hands because of sensitive Vulcan fingers and science is dangerous. Jim was perfectly okay with the arrangement.

"I've never loved anyone else like I love you and I pledge that I will continue loving you in good times and bad and we have already gone through a lot of bad together. We have to stop having near-death experiences." That line also got a few more chuckles and an 'Amen' from Bones.

"I pledge to stand by your side in good times and bad, in sickness and in health. I promise to support you in all things. I promise to talk things out, instead of reacting badly. I pledge to keep no secrets from you. I promise to keep my heart and mind open. You are my heart and I am yours from this day forward until my last breath."

"I would prefer that you not have another last breath." Spock said, wiping a tear that was running down Jim's cheek. Jim is really crying more than he wanted to do during this.

"I also promise not to die again if I can help it. I expect the same from you." Jim said, leaning over to kiss Spock.

"Of course, T'hy'la." Spock responded in between kisses."

"We are not at that part of the ceremony yet." Paris said with an annoyed look on her face.

"Are you kidding me? It's a miracle they held out this long." Nyota remarked from beside Spock.

"Sorry." Jim pulled away sheepishly

"By the power invested in me by the United Federation of Planets, I now pronounce you lawfully wedded spouses. Now, you may kiss." At Paris's words, Jim pounced on Spock." They kept connected at the mouth until Jim couldn't breathe anymore. Now this was the perfect wedding.

Well, it was perfect until the reception when Kristen decided to give the unedited version of how she and Nyota managed to get Jim and Spock together in the first place as part of her wedding toast. His father-in-law was giving him the eyebrows of death right now and his lovely little flower girl just asked her two dads what a Pleasure Seeker 9000 was. Maybe his wedding was just perfect for him. He didn't care because Spock's fingers were still laced with his and Scotty had made the high proof eggnog.

* * *

December 24, 2268

Jim Kirk was having one of his not so great Christmases. It was not as bad as taking his mom off of life support 9 years previously, but rescuing six Vulcan toddlers from a slave ship was definitely in the top five. Mostly because there were more than six children on the ship, but the slavers killed half before they were able to get on the ship. They were trying to get rid of the 'evidence' before Starfleet intervened. Obviously they failed miserably. They also all resisted arrest which was why they were all detained in the morgue instead of the brig.

Now Dr. Margarita Cruz (the ship's CMO, psychiatrist, and a general practitioner in her own right) and Spock were assisting with the children, who were now safely tucked away in the Sickbay of Enterprise. At the same time, Jim and Lieutenant Uhura-Klucking were looking for evidence regarding what the hell happened. (After getting married last June, Kristin took Nyota's last name, happy to be rid of the Marcus name for good).They were currently going through the laboratory that was obviously set up to be some sort of baby factory.

"Those are definitely gestational pods." Kristen remarked from beside him.

"So they're not using kidnap victims as gestational carriers."

Jim wasn't sure how he felt about that. On the one hand, he was relieved that they weren't going to have to deal with more victims, especially victims who suffered forced pregnancy at best and sexual assault at worse in addition to captivity. On the other hand, that meant that the children in the Enterprise's Sickbay never felt the loving touch of someone who cared about them. That can be dangerous for someone who can easily pick up emotions. The children on the ship were merely chattel, bred to go to the highest bidder and that was disgusting.

"If you were running an evil baby making enterprise, why would you use live gestational carriers when incubator pods are so much more convenient. Not to mention less likely to kick you in the balls." Kristen quipped angrily as she scanned each child for life signs. "Also easier to kill when things go south." Of course, at the science officer's dark words her tricorder started to beep.

"I'm picking up faint life signs from gestational pod 31 X despite the fact that they cut off life support. But we got to get the baby out of there now. The pod is losing its synthesized amniotic fluid." The science officer's voice was filled with urgency.

"Kirk to Enterprise. I need a doctor down here now. We have a fetus in a gestational pods that we might be able to save."

Dr. Willow was down there in seconds. She was Dr. Cruz's number two, but the one more qualified for situations like this. (Jim brought her over to Enterprise after his interim assignment on USS Endeavour during the Enterprise's reconstruction). Despite not having all of the necessary neonatal equipment for a Vulcan preemie, baby X did survive the emergency extraction from the gestational pod 11 weeks early after all systems went down.

It wasn't long before they discovered the reason why Baby X survived when the other Vulcan fetuses did not. Baby X was part human and therefore further along in her fetal development compared to the fully Vulcan fetuses.

While they were investigating the baby growing operation on the ship, they discovered that individuals running it were utilizing DNA from the endangered species bank. Once the babies were grown, they would sell the children on the black market. It was easy for them to get the samples that other Vulcans found undesirable such as those belonging to Vulcan survivors who did not follow Vulcan philosophy or happened to be multi-species, such as his husband of 4 years.

Jim wasn't surprised at all when Dr. Willow informed him that Baby X was Spock's genetic daughter. Since the little baby Vulcan had already worked her way into his heart, he was happy about this. (Technically, it was already Christmas Day by about 15 minutes when he found out about this.) He really didn't want to turn her over to Federation family services when they arrived on the Vulcan colony in three days' time.

"Are any of the other children we rescued Spock's?" Jim asked wondering if all the children they rescued could be Spock's.

"No. We are currently running samples from the other children against the databank, but I think we will have the other children identified, if possible, before we reach New Vulcan. We were able to discover Baby X's parentage so quickly because Commander Spock is the only individual with partial human ancestry in the bank."

"And Baby X is obviously part human." They were really going to have to come up with a different name for the little girl, especially because she was part Spock.

"I understand if you need to speak to your husband about this. Let me know if I don't need to make arrangements with Federation family services for this little one." Dr. Willow said letting Jim go to break the news to Spock.

Spock was stunned by the revelation that Baby X was his biological daughter. (Mostly because he was pissed off his DNA was being sold on the black market.) However, Spock's reaction to the news didn't surprise Jim at all.

"I have always been partial to the name Amanda Kristen Kirk." As he stared at the baby in front of them and wonderment. She was definitely a little fighter.

"Only because I won't let you give our daughter your ex-girlfriend's name, even if it's just for her middle name. She is my friend too, but it's still just a little weird." Jim said grabbing his husband's hand.

"Understandable. Since Kristen helped us get together and saved little Amanda's life by finding her in the abandoned lab, I believe naming our first child after her is appropriate."

"Amanda Kristen Kirk sound good together. So does this mean we are going to be parents?" Jim asked his husband.

"Yes, Jim. I am sure Sarek will be pleased with this development, despite the circumstances." Especially because they were going to have to go visit his father-in-law to show off Amanda when they turned over the other survivors to New Vulcan.

"Your brother and sister will definitely enjoy having a niece to play with. Although this means big changes for us. For one, we will have to leave Enterprise before Amanda is a year old." Young children were still not allowed on certain high risk assignments and anything Enterprise does is now considered high risk due to being completely destroyed four years ago.

"This does give you an excellent reason to accept the request to become the Federation Ambassador to Teenax." Certain individuals in the Federation have wanted to appoint him ambassador to the planet for years, but Jim wasn't quite ready to leave yet. This did give him an excellent reason to say yes.

"Mostly because we managed to convince Representative Kevin to give peace another try at our wedding reception." They ended up negotiating a peace treaty between the Teenax and the Fibonan Republic on their honeymoon.

"You know if we leave Kristen gets to be Chief Science Officer without Nyota needing to switch ships." This was going to be even more probable after Kristen received another commendation for quick thinking for hacking into the slave ship to keep them from killing all the children on board. Of course, Nyota would move to a different ship to let her wife have the career she deserved. The 'two bodies' problem was evil.

"And Commander Sulu will no longer be tempted to relocate to the Executor." Spock added.

"I'm sure they will take my recommendation that he become the new captain now that he did serve as a first officer while the Enterprise was under reconstruction. Objectively, us leaving would actually keep more of the band together. I think even Chekov might transfer back with me gone." Darwin was an excellent navigator, but he couldn't help missing her predecessor just a little.

"That would be highly unlikely due to the fact that he is engaged in a romantic relationship with the Captain of the Hamilton." Spock informed him.

"I never thought you were much for listening to ship gossip?"

"As you well know, when a Captain is engaged in a serious relationship with someone under his or her command, copious amounts of paperwork are required." Spock explained. Jim was happy that Chekov found himself in a relationship serious enough to require fraternization paperwork. That stuff was awful.

"And Commander Sulu asked you to get a hold of that paperwork because his baby's mama was involved?" Jim asked. Those two had a really interesting relationship.

"Yes."

"Obviously, this helps our friends out in a weird way, but we don't necessarily have to take the position on Teenax." Jim argued.

"I think it would be a nice planet to raise our daughter for at least the first few years. I am certain you would prefer it to the Vulcan colony." Spock retorted.

"I think you're right. Oh God, we are parents." Jim said realizing the gravity of the situation. They were going to be totally responsible for another person. That was a scary thought. "Can we really be responsible for that little life in there for the next 18 years plus?"

"I believe that we can accomplish anything as long as were together." Jim responded to Spock's words by kissing him breathless.

Jim believed that as well the next day when he held his daughter for the first time. They could do this, together. Amanda was definitely the best anniversary/Christmas present ever.

The end.

* * *

Thank you everybody who has read and reviewed the series over the years. Also thank you to my beta GraysonSteele who has helped me through this entire series, especially this last story which is almost the size of the rest of the series combined. Also shout out to memory Alpha who I could not have done the first chapter without. Trying to do a movie rewrite the month before the movie comes out on digital is not easy, especially with character and planet names that my voice recognition software cannot recognize at all.

It's been a wonderful journey writing the series for the last four years. This is the end for now. Maybe someday I will write a story about Jim, Spock and baby Amanda but for now this is where I leave you. It's been beautiful.


End file.
